CASE/1000/06/26 - Complainant v Ferring

COMPLAINANT v FERRING

Alleged promotion of Adstiladrin via a LinkedIn job advertisement

This case was in relation to a LinkedIn post by a senior UK employee of Ferring, advertising a vacancy for a commercial lead role in uro-oncology. The post referred to Ferring having received approval to launch a first-in-class intravesical gene therapy for BCG-unresponsive bladder cancer in the UK. The complainant alleged that, although the medicine was not named in the post, the description meant it was identifiable as Ferring’s product Adstiladrin (nadofaragene firadenovec) and therefore amounted to promotion of that product to the public.

The complainant was contactable and described themselves as a health professional.

The case preparation manager considered that the complaint met the criteria for the abridged complaints procedure because:

• it was likely in their view that there had been a breach of the Code,

• it appeared that the central facts would not be disputed, and

• isolated instances of promotion to the public are within the scope of the abridged procedure.

The case preparation manager considered that the post included promotional claims: describing the medicine as “first-in-class” and stating that it addressed “a patient population with no adequate alternative”. The post appeared on the employee’s own publicly visible LinkedIn feed.

Although the post stated “We’ve just received an approval to launch…”, Ferring explained in its response to the complaint that the employee was referring to internal approval for the purposes of the job advertisement (rather than MHRA approval), and that Adstiladrin was pre-licence in the UK at the time of the post. Ferring provided the required undertaking and assurances and accepted that:

• the post amounted to pre-licence promotion of Adstiladrin, in breach of Clause 3.1, and

• the employee involved had failed to maintain high standards by acting contrary to Ferring’s social media SOP, in breach of Clause 5.2.

Ferring confirmed that it had removed the post on the day it became aware of it (which was before the PMCPA sent Ferring the complaint), and that its investigation had not identified a systemic compliance issue.

The outcome under the 2024 Code of Practice was:

COMPLAINANT v FERRING

Alleged promotion of Adstiladrin via a LinkedIn job advertisement

This case was in relation to a LinkedIn post by a senior UK employee of Ferring, advertising a vacancy for a commercial lead role in uro-oncology. The post referred to Ferring having received approval to launch a first-in-class intravesical gene therapy for BCG-unresponsive bladder cancer in the UK. The complainant alleged that, although the medicine was not named in the post, the description meant it was identifiable as Ferring’s product Adstiladrin (nadofaragene firadenovec) and therefore amounted to promotion of that product to the public.

The complainant was contactable and described themselves as a health professional.

The case preparation manager considered that the complaint met the criteria for the abridged complaints procedure because:

• it was likely in their view that there had been a breach of the Code,
• it appeared that the central facts would not be disputed, and
• isolated instances of promotion to the public are within the scope of the abridged procedure.

The case preparation manager considered that the post included promotional claims: describing the medicine as “first-in-class” and stating that it addressed “a patient population with no adequate alternative”. The post appeared on the employee’s own publicly visible LinkedIn feed.

Although the post stated “We’ve just received an approval to launch…”, Ferring explained in its response to the complaint that the employee was referring to internal approval for the purposes of the job advertisement (rather than MHRA approval), and that Adstiladrin was pre-licence in the UK at the time of the post. Ferring provided the required undertaking and assurances and accepted that:

• the post amounted to pre-licence promotion of Adstiladrin, in breach of Clause 3.1, and
• the employee involved had failed to maintain high standards by acting contrary to Ferring’s social media SOP, in breach of Clause 5.2.

Ferring confirmed that it had removed the post on the day it became aware of it (which was before the PMCPA sent Ferring the complaint), and that its investigation had not identified a systemic compliance issue.

The outcome under the 2024 Code of Practice was: