Digital Pharma: Bayer reprimanded over social media use
pharmafile | August 17, 2011 | News story | Medical Communications | ABPI Code of Practice, Bayer, Digital Pharma blog, PMCPA
Bayer will be named in the medical press after being found guilty of the first social media breach of the ABPI’s Code of Practice.
At issue was the company’s use of Twitter, which it used to promote prescription-only medicines to the public by sending two product-related tweets – a clear breach of the Code.
The case, which was exclusively revealed by Pharmafocus’ Digital Pharma blog, concerned Bayer’s erectile dysfunction treatment Levitra and its multiple sclerosis spasticity drug Sativex.
Bayer tweeted about Levitra in March this year, saying: “First & only melt-in-the-mouth erectile dysfunction treatment launched by Bayer today”, and included a link to a press release on its UK website.
An earlier tweet from last June went further and mentioned Sativex’s brand name, indication and launch.
Both tweets featured headlines from the press releases they linked to. The releases themselves had been signed-off internally for Code compliance, but the tweets had not.
The @BayerUKIreland Twitter account the tweets were sent from was accessible by members of the public, promoting prescription-only medicines to whom is one of the Code of Practice’s cardinal sins.
Consequently the PMCPA’s July judgement considered Bayer to have made public announcements about the launch of a prescription-only medicine on Twitter.
The PMCPA ruling on the case did note that the use of social media, including Twitter, to provide information to the public was a legitimate activity for UK pharma, so long as the material complied with the Code of Practice.
Adverts about the case will be run in The Nursing Standard, the BMJ and The Pharmaceutical Journal as a consequence of Bayer’s breach of clause two of the Code (‘bringing discredit upon, and reducing confidence in, the pharmaceutical industry’).
Bayer’s slip up coincided with the release of new PMCPA guidance on the use of digital media, which all but ruled out using Twitter to promote medicines.
• The case is sure to give communications professionals pause for thought when considering whether to use social media. But at heart it is more a reminder of how carefully the Code must be applied to all forms of communications, rather than a landmark social media ruling.
Dominic Tyer is web editor for Pharmafocus and InPharm.com and the author of the Digital Pharma blog He can be contacted via email, Twitter, LinkedIn or Google+.
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