AstraZeneca Reprimanded Again Over Employee LinkedIn Activity

AstraZeneca (AZN) has been found to have breached UK pharmaceutical marketing rules for the latest in a series of cases involving the LinkedIn activity of its employees, with the country's self-regulatory watchdog identifying eight separate violations.

The case was triggered by a health professional who alerted the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA) to a LinkedIn post published by an independent organization. The post, which announced an award for "Best Pharmaceutical Product," described AstraZeneca's cancer drug Lynparza as "groundbreaking." The complainant alleged that UK-based AstraZeneca employees, including senior staff, had interacted with the post.

AstraZeneca acknowledged that 18 UK-based employees — among them two vice presidents and two department heads — had engaged with the content, and accepted that doing so could have served to amplify the post to a wider audience. The company nonetheless contested the allegation that the interactions constituted a breach of the marketing code.

The PMCPA sided with the complainant on the majority of points, ruling that AstraZeneca had violated eight clauses of the code. The watchdog concluded that "there could be no doubt" that dissemination of the post by company employees amounted to promotion of Lynparza, and raised concerns that AstraZeneca had failed to recognize the activity as a breach when it first responded to the complaint. The company was spared the harshest censure, however, after the PMCPA rejected the allegation that the conduct had brought discredit upon the pharmaceutical industry — in part because AstraZeneca had acted promptly once alerted, asking the independent organization to delete the post, requesting that staff remove their likes and ordering a review of internal policy.

LinkedIn has become a persistent compliance problem for AstraZeneca. Since the PMCPA ruled in December 2021 that the company's LinkedIn activity had brought discredit on the industry, the watchdog has ruled against it in nearly 20 cases involving the platform. GSK (GSK), Novartis (NVS), Pfizer (PFE) and Vertex (VRTX) are among other biopharma companies to have fallen foul of UK rules on social media use over the same period.