Playing by the rules

Communicating about compliance helps keep employees on the right side of the laws

 
Working at the pharmaceutical industry means working in a highly regulated environment. An understandable situation, due to nature of our business. We want to ensure the safety and benefits of the products, and we need to enforce the right use of our medications, since we are dealing with people’s health as well as growing pressure on healthcare budgets. European regulations are in place that relate to the way pharmaceutical companies can communicate with the end users of our medicines. Although patients are ultimately the real customers of our medicines, in Europe pharmaceutical companies are not allowed to communicate proactively with patients about their products. As one Dutch chief executive officer of a pharmaceutical company once stated: “Everyone can talk about our products to the general public apart from us, the company who developed them.” These types of regulations are often not known by the general public.

Hester de Voogd

Hester de Voogd is communication director at MSD in the Netherlands. MSD is a global research-driven pharmaceutical company. In the Neherlands, it is one of the largest and most diverse pharmaceutical companies, employing about 5,500 people. Prior to taking up her current role, de Voogd was the corporate communications manager at United Pan Europe Communications and the corporate communications manager at the Ministry of Justice of the Government of Netherlands. She held an earlier role as communication research and development officer at DSM.