AUTH/2846/5/16 - Voluntary admission by Janssen

Failure to sit the examination for representatives within one year

  • Received
    20 May 2016
  • Case number
    AUTH/2846/5/16
  • Applicable Code year
    2016
  • Completed
    04 July 2016
  • Breach Clause(s)
  • Sanctions applied
    Undertaking received
  • Additional sanctions
  • Appeal
    No appeal
  • Review
    August 2016 Review

Case Summary

​Janssen voluntarily admitted that one of its sales managers failed to take the required examination within one year of commencing that role. 

As Paragraph 5.6 of the Constitution and Procedure required the Director to treat a voluntary admission as a complaint, the matter was taken up with Janssen. 

Janssen explained that in Autumn 2014, one of its employees became a first line sales manager. Details of the manager's previous roles (which did not include sales), qualifications and training were provided. 

In June 2015, the learning and development (L&D) department was asked to clarify whether the manager needed to complete the ABPI representatives examination. The advice was 'No' given the employee's qualifications and training to date. This was an error. In April 2016 this advice was re-questioned and the L&D team raised the matter with the medical director, who confirmed the examination was required. 

Janssen stated that these events amounted to a breach of the Code, since the individual had been in a sales management role for more than 12 months without sitting the ABPI examination. 

The detailed response from Janssen is given below. 

The Panel noted that Janssen made no submission that the manager's role was not within the definition of a representative. It therefore followed that the sales manager in question, who commenced employment in that role in Autumn 2014, should have taken an appropriate examination for the first time by Autumn 2015. 

The requirement of the Code to take an examination within 1 year had not been met as acknowledged by Janssen and the Panel ruled a breach of the Code. 

The Panel was concerned that neither an experienced manager nor Janssen's L&D department were clear about the requirement to take an examination. It did not appear that anyone had referred directly to the Code. The Panel further noted that Janssen's procedure for training employees on the Code did not cover the situation where an existing employee moved to a role which newly required them to take an appropriate examination. On balance the Panel decided that the failure to take the examination or recognise that the employee needed to take an appropriate examination amounted to a failure to maintain high standards and thus a breach of the Code was ruled.​