AUTH/3498/3/21 - Ex-employee v Leo

Information on payments to patient organisations

  • Received
    29 March 2021
  • Case number
    AUTH/3498/3/21
  • Applicable Code year
    2019
  • Completed
    18 November 2021
  • No breach Clause(s)
  • Breach Clause(s)
  • Sanctions applied
    Undertaking received
  • Additional sanctions
  • Appeal
    Respondent appeal

Case Summary

An anonymous, contactable ex-employee of Leo Pharma complained about information on the company’s website and on the Disclosure UK website about payments it had made to patient organisations.

The complainant alleged that the document entitled ‘List of patient organisations which Leo Pharma UK/IE has provided support in the years 2018 and 2019’ (dated January 2021) on the Leo UK website, contained a number of errors and omissions.

The complainant noted that there was no mention on the list that in 2018, the National Eczema Society received funding from Leo Pharma UK but that Leo had disclosed on the Disclosure UK website the amount of £1,000 to the National Eczema Society in 2018.

The complainant noted that on 17 September 2019, a Leo Pharma UK/IE tweet stated:

‘We were thrilled to present[name and position]of @eczemasociety a cheque for £5,217.43 raised by our fantastic #LEOPharmaTREKFEST team! This amount was matched by Leo Pharma bringing the total donation to an amazing £10,434.86. Thank you to everyone who donated!’

The complainant noted that the amount from Leo UK (£5,317.43) was not disclosed as funding to the National Eczema Society in 2019 in the document on the Leo UK Website.

The complainant stated that he/she could not tell if Leo disclosed funding to patient organisations for 2018 and 2019 in a time frame in accordance with Code requirements. Although he/she could see that the following payments made in 2019 only became available to the public in January 2021 (they were not on the December 2020 version of the list) and therefore this disclosure was outside of the first six months after the end of the 2019:

‘Thrombosis UK
National Thrombosis Week
Date of payment: April 2019
Monetary value: £2,400’

‘Thrombosis UK
Cancer Comorbidities Initiative
Date of payment: July 2019
Monetary value: £325.60’

‘Thrombosis UK
Let’s Talk Clots Conference
Date of payment: October 2019
Monetary value: £800’

The complainant alleged that the above were examples where it was not clear to the reader by the description provided what the money was provided for.

The complainant stated that many of the other amounts of funding on the list did not provide a clear description of the significance of the funding or what the money was for, eg ‘Donation to match the amount raised in a private capacity by a Leo Pharma employee’ was used to describe giving ‘Changing Faces’ the sum of £1,408.20 in June 2018 - what was that money for?

The detailed response from Leo is given below.

The Panel noted Leo’s submission that a transfer of value of £1,000 made in 2018 to the National Eczema Society and published on Disclosure UK, was for the sponsorship of three training events for health professionals in return for which Leo would have a stand at each event. The Panel further noted Leo’s submission that for the purposes of that activity, it regarded the National Eczema Society as a healthcare organisation and disclosure was made on Disclosure UK.

The Panel considered that it was possible, depending upon the activity in question, that an organisation could fulfil either the role of a patient organisation or the role of a healthcare organisation. On the evidence before it, the Panel considered that the complainant had not discharged his/her burden of proof that the disclosure of this particular transfer of value to the National Eczema Society on Disclosure UK as opposed to on the list of payments made to patient organisations on the Leo website was inappropriate as alleged and no breach of the 2016 Code was ruled.

The Panel noted Leo’s submission that it had matched the amount raised by its employees (£5,217.43) from family and friends for participating in a sponsored walk called ‘Trekfest’; a total charitable donation of £10,434.86 was announced on the Leo UK/Ireland Twitter feed in September 2019. The Panel noted, however, that the Code required companies to publish, at a national or European level, a list of patient organisations to which they had provided support; individual announcements of payments on Twitter and the like were not sufficient in that regard. The Panel noted that Leo’s payment to the National Eczema Society with regard to ‘Trekfest’ was not included in the list of payments made to patient organisations in 2019 on the company’s website (dated January 2021). The Panel therefore ruled a breach of the 2019 Code in relation to that payment.

The Panel noted that as stated by the complainant the list of patient organisations to which Leo Pharma UK/IE had provided support in the years 2018 and 2019 had two successive versions in recent times on the Leo UK Website, one dated December 2020 and a subsequent document with the same title dated January 2021. The Panel noted Leo’s submission that the list was updated between December 2020 and January 2021 because three payments made to Thrombosis UK in 2019 had been missed off the list in December 2020.

In relation to the three payments made to Thrombosis UK in 2019, the Panel noted that these payments had not been disclosed until January 2021 and thus the Panel ruled a breach of the Code in relation to each payment. Leo accepted one breach of the Code and it appealed the remaining two breaches of that clause.

In relation to the description of the three payments made to Thrombosis UK in 2019 on the list dated January 2021, the Panel noted that the record of payments to Thrombosis UK included the name of the organisation, a brief description of the project or initiative for which the support had been given and its monetary value. The Panel considered that it was possible that the payments were for core funding of the projects or initiatives at issue as opposed to specific related activities; the complainant had provided no evidence otherwise and Leo had made no submission in that regard. On the basis of the information before it, the Panel did not consider that the complainant had shown, on the balance of probabilities, that the description of the nature of the support was not sufficiently complete to enable the average reader to form an understanding of its significance as alleged; no breach of the Code was ruled in relation to each of the three payments in that regard.

The Panel was concerned to note that the three payments to Thrombosis UK were missing from the December 2020 list on Leo’s website given that in November 2020 Leo was made aware of issues with its disclosure of payments made in 2019 to patient organisations as part of Case AUTH/3418/11/20. The Panel was further concerned that Leo had twice updated its list following that complaint (December 2020 and January 2021) but its donation to the National Eczema Society for Trekfest was still missed. The Panel considered that Leo had failed to maintain high standards in this regard and a breach of the Code was ruled.

Clause 2 was a sign of particular censure and was reserved for such use. The Panel noted that Leo only became aware that it had not disclosed any of its 2019 payments to patient organisations as required by the Code on notification of Case AUTH/3418/11/20 in November 2020 and had subsequently disclosed some but not all of the payments in December 2020, more than 5 months later than the date required by the Code. Furthermore, three payments to Thrombosis UK were not disclosed until January 2021 and Leo only became aware that its donation to the National Eczema Society in relation to Trekfest in 2019 had not been disclosed on its website when it was notified of this complaint (Case AUTH/3498/3/21) in March 2021. In the Panel’s view, transparency in relation to transfers of value to patient organisations was an important means of building and maintaining confidence in the pharmaceutical industry. The Panel considered that Leo had reduced confidence in the industry in this regard and ruled a breach of Clause 2 of the Code. This ruling was appealed by Leo.

With regard to the complainant’s general observation that many of the other amounts of funding on the January 2021 list did not provide a clear description of the significance of the funding or what the money was for, the Panel considered that it was not for it to make out the complaint and identify the funding at issue. In that regard, however, the complainant had specifically referred to a ‘Donation to match the amount raised in a private capacity by a Leo Pharma employee’ being used to describe giving ‘Changing Faces’ £1408.20 in June 2018. The Panel noted that the record of the payment to Changing Faces included the name of the organisation, a statement that the payment was to match an amount raised by an employee in his/her private capacity and its monetary value. The Panel considered that it was possible that the payment was for core funding as opposed to specific activities; the complainant had provided no evidence otherwise and Leo had made no submission in that regard. The Panel did not consider that the complainant had shown, on the balance of probabilities, that the description of the nature of the support of the payment to Changing Faces was not sufficiently complete to enable the average reader to form an understanding of the significance of the support as alleged and no breach of the 2016 Code was ruled. The Panel noted its comments and rulings here and above at Point 1 and consequently ruled no breaches of the 2016 Code including Clause 2.

The Appeal Board noted that three payments made to Thrombosis UK in 2019 had not been disclosed until January 2021 and thus the Panel had ruled a breach of the 2019 Code in relation to each payment. The Appeal Board considered that the late disclosure of the three payments in question only amounted to one breach of the Code which had been accepted by Leo and ruled accordingly. The appeal on this point was successful.

The Appeal Board considered that it was most regrettable that Leo was more than 6 months late in disclosing payments made to patient organisations in 2019. This was the second time that Leo had not met the requirements of the Code in this regard. The Appeal Board noted that Leo’s failures in this regard appeared to be confined to a single year, 2019, and that the reporting period may have been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. The Appeal Board considered, on balance, that the Panel’s ruling of a breach of the Code above was sufficient in relation to the second failure to publish the patient organisation payments in the requisite time period. Consequently, the Appeal Board ruled no breach of Clause 2. The appeal on this point was successful.