Marketing practices
As a healthcare company, we recognize our responsibility to provide accurate information about our products to healthcare professionals, patients and consumers.
We believe there are several fundamental principles that guide responsible marketing practices and other interactions with healthcare professionals and customers:
- Promotional practices must accurately reflect patient benefit and risk profile, be ethical and be in good taste
- Information provided must take customer needs into account and be based on product information as it has been approved by local authorities
- Sponsorships of medical or scientific events must be clearly disclosed, and the purpose of a meeting must be to share relevant medical or scientific information
- Hospitality must be appropriate, modest, consistent with local practices and secondary to the main purpose of the meeting
- When permitted under local requirements, gifts must be inexpensive compared to local standards, relevant to the practice of medicine and only be given infrequently
- Any personal incentives to prescribe are prohibited
- Samples must only be provided to health care professionals with the primary purpose of familiarization with the product and any such provision must adhere to all locally applicable requirements
- Our global standards represent the company’s minimum standards and all interactions, and activities must comply with applicable local laws and regulations
Each Novartis division has specific standards for business activities and interactions with healthcare professionals and other customers. The Novartis Pharmaceuticals Division sets these out in the Novartis Pharma Principles and Practices for Professionals (NP4). Compliance with NP4 across the Pharmaceuticals Division is verified by Group Audit. Similar policies are in place for other Novartis divisions, and each division requires local review and approval processes to ensure adherence to the relevant codes.
