We welcome the opportunity to hear from you and would like to share some simple ‘house rules’ to help everybody get the best from the community.

We work in regulated industries and because of the unique legal situation in the healthcare space, we can't engage in sensitive topics, or discussion(s) about products - ours or other companies' - or treatment options on this page. For this reason, we want to make sure that the discussions that take place on the timeline stay on topic and are constructive.

If your comment doesn't comply with the following basic rules, it may be delayed, or in some cases, not be published:

  • If your posts are product related
  • If your posts include profanity, defamatory, libelous, offensive, abusive, discriminatory or demeaning content (including images, videos and links);
  • If your posts are disparaging, threatening, condone violence or illegal behavior;
  • If your posts are off-topic;
  • If your posts offer health or medical advice;
  • If your posts contain any personal information e.g. names of individuals, email address or phone number;
  • If your posts violate another's copyright or intellectual property;
  • If your posts are commercial, e.g. sells products and services, or recruit fans and followers;
  • If your posts are excessively repetitive and/or disruptive to the community or are spam;
  • If your posts contain proprietary, confidential, sensitive, or nonpublic information;
  • If your posts don't follow Facebook's posting guidelines and Terms of Use.

Please be aware that fans who continuously and repeatedly contravene the above rules may be removed from our fan list. In this case the user would no longer be able to follow our news, comment on our posts, or send us messages.

This community is English speaking only and as such any non-English language content will be removed.

Medical side effects or adverse events

If you believe that you have experienced any medical side effects or reactions from a Novartis product, you should consult your physician, pharmacist or other healthcare professional immediately. You can also report these to us directly using the information found on Novartis.com.
We suggest sharing as little personal information as possible on the Facebook Page, especially sharing any specific data concerning your personal health should be avoided. Should you, however, decide to include a post detailing any side effects, Novartis may need to contact you to find out more information. Posts of this nature may not appear or may need to be removed from our Facebook Page; this is due to legal obligations concerning drug safety reporting.

Storing and using private information

Content you share in this channel is available to the public. Novartis may process, store and use information you chose to share through this channel for reasons such as improving its products and services, reporting adverse events or providing you with assistance upon your request. To facilitate requests, we may ask for additional information which will only be used for the purpose it was initially collected.

In case of an adverse event or product issue you report to us, we will need to store and use identifying information you provide in accordance with the applicable laws. This information is required to be submitted to the Novartis Drug Safety department and/or regulatory authorities. In such case, we are also required to store your personal data to comply with legal and regulatory requirements/obligations.

If you share personal information relating to other people, you represent that you have the authority to lawfully do so and to permit us to use the information.

Please kindly note that we may use 3rd party service providers to help us manage your comments and direct messages which means that they too would have access to any personal information you share with us. Such 3rd party service providers are contractually bound to ensure an adequate protection and security of your personal information.

Please note that Facebook also has access to information you share with us through their platform. For more details read the Facebook Privacy Policy.

For additional information about privacy at Novartis, read our Privacy Policy.