Novo Nordisk apologises for not disclosing sponsorship of anti-obesity training

The chief executive of pharma group Novo Nordisk has apologised for breaking the UK industry code by failing to disclose its sponsorship of obesity and weight management training courses for healthcare professionals that also promoted its weight loss drug.

Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen said the company “sincerely apologises” that its branding was missing from a LinkedIn post promoting online weight loss webinars and e-learning modules that Novo Nordisk said it sponsored from February 2020 to December 2021.

The webinars, which were viewed by thousands of healthcare professionals, preferentially included positive information about Novo’s weight loss drug Saxenda that the self-regulatory watchdog deemed a “disguised” large-scale promotional campaign.

Jørgensen said Novo’s failure to disclose its sponsorship was a “mistake”.

“It should have said that it was sponsored by Novo and it did not. And that of course, could make people draw the wrong conclusions,” he told the Financial Times.

The industry self-regulatory body published a strongly worded reprimand last year, saying it was “concerned about the company’s compliance culture . . . internal governance systems and processes, and a perceived naivety and lack of accountability from Novo Nordisk”.

It also said it was concerned about “the potential impact on patient safety” because the webinars, which were run by a third-party provider but sponsored by Novo, included side effects of rival drugs but not of Saxenda.

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry is in the process of auditing Novo over the breach and deciding whether to take any further action.

Pinder Sahota, general manager of Novo Nordisk UK, stepped down this month from his role as president of the ABPI, saying he did not want the audit to become a “distraction” from the group’s “vital work”. Novo said it has been assisting with the audit.

Alison Dennis, a partner who co-heads the life sciences division at law firm Taylor Wessing, said while UK financial penalties for breaking the industry code can be as little as £4,000, any suspension of Novo Nordisk from the ABPI would be a rare “public reprimand”.

“It is public that you have been doing things wrong and that affects credibility in important relationships like sales representatives going into doctors’ offices,” she said.

In 2020 and 2021, the watchdog received an average of 147 complaints about drugmakers a year, finding industry code breaches in two-thirds of cases. Seven companies have been suspended from the ABPI for breaching the code since the 1980s.

Sidney Wolfe, a founder and senior adviser of health research group Public Citizen, said there is a long history of pharmaceutical companies running secretive marketing campaigns under the pretence of providing education.

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“Unfortunately, because the penalties for engaging in such behaviour are rarely a deterrent for companies, these potentially illegal but profitable activities will continue to be part of companies’ business model without larger penalties and successful prosecutions of company executives,” he said.

Novo Nordisk is in the process of bringing another weight loss drug, Wegovy, to market. It helped patients lose far more weight than Saxenda in a trial but, while patients are eager to try new weight loss drugs, clinicians are far more used to prescribing diet and exercise.

Jørgensen said: “It’s really important to understand that unless there is investment in educating physicians, there is a risk that physicians are not being updated on the latest advancements. And that’s where, of course, there’s a fine line about how you do that.”

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