Some of the largest Pharmaceutical companies globally use Zovy Supervisor to decrease risk, ensure compliance, and meet the highest standards of conduct.
The time for a drastic change in Supervision is now.
Fines across the pharmaceutical industry totaled in the Billions in 2019, with fines of half a billion for single companies. Sanctions for highly publicized pricing scandals are on target for similar levels in 2020. Supervision and monitoring protocols or requirements are not as clearly defined as in some other industries, but practice in some form is critical to successful and honest business operations.
Reduce enforcement costs. Self-govern your organization. Avoid fines.
In addition to decreasing your current oversight costs significantly, reducing the risk of regulatory fines and legal sanctions, Zovy Supervisor will ensure that you can prove your organization is self-governing and ensure you can meet regulatory requirements that are sure to increase in the coming years.
What Does this Mean for You?
As pharmaceutical companies are pressed to take a broader view of compliance, active compliance has become a requirement and not an option, and paper compliance is no longer enough, according to Deloitte. You can rely on Zovy Supervisor to monitor, capture, analyze, and investigate employee communications.
Ongoing lawsuits related to price-fixing scandals in the industry are on track to result in fines that could exceed 2 Billion dollars for a single case. Prosecutors leading these cases base their evidence on emails, text messages, telephone records, and other electronic records that highlight the improper behavior within these organizations. Detect at-risk behaviors early and defend your organization’s reputation with a comprehensive, low-cost monitoring program managed by Zovy Supervisor.
Globally, regulatory scrutiny and sanctions are on the increase. United States price transparency laws are an evolving area and are a policy area that will likely progress quickly in 2021. Add to this the growth of emerging markets globally, and the need for monitoring and analysis deepens. 3 Pharmaceutical companies alone paid a total of $123 Million dollars as the result of a Department of Justice investigation due to improper pricing conduct.
The cost and complexity of maintaining compliance are only increasing with the rise of drugs developed and business done in countries like India. The Indian pharmaceutical industry is growing at an annual rate of 16% and as of 2020 will be among the top 3 pharmaceutical markets in the world. Working globally and dealing with multiple regulatory agencies and rules increased both risk and the cost of maintaining compliance. Zovy has helped our pharmaceutical clients maintain compliance at home, and expand it globally to meet highly varied requirements.
Avoid Millions in Fines and Financial Risk
Zovy Supervisor provides our customers with the capability to identify at-risk behavior early and ensure that your organization is not subject to sanctions or a Corporate Integrity Agreement (CIA) associated with a breach of regulatory compliance. Zovy Supervisor provides your compliance department with the capability to continuously monitor virtually any definable communication issue so that compliance issues are identified early, and corrective action can be taken quickly. At the heart of many recent high profile cases in the industry has been the interactions between pharmaceutical companies and the healthcare providers that they work with. Ensuring that these interactions follow proscribed guidelines and internal rules is critical, but challenging given the broad array of communications that exist in today’s world. Our leading pharmaceutical customers utilize Zovy Supervisor to monitor employee interactions with providers and ensure that they are in compliance with their company code of conduct as well as the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) Code on Interactions with Healthcare Professionals.
Corporate Integrity Agreements
2019 brought an unusually high number of CIAs for medical device and pharmaceutical companies, four times as many as the previous year. This does not tell the full story of increased enforcement. Even in situations where the HHS-OIG elected not to impose a CIA, it was a result of the targeted company making “sweeping and fundamental organizational changes” resulting in greater oversight and transparency. Zovy Supervisor’s continuous regulatory and compliance monitoring capabilities provide our pharmaceutical industry clients with an unprecedented capability to routinely monitor, supervise, and report against key CIA requirements. If you have been tasked to work with an Independent Review Organization (the “IRO”), you have to meet key oversight goals. Zovy Supervisor can securely and privately provide controlled monitoring capabilities to your IRO and ensure that you meet the required statistical sampling requirements that are set forth in your agreement and significantly reduced costs.
Data Loss Prevention
There are few industries where intellectual property and trade secrets are as critical as the pharmaceutical industry. Outside entities who learn of product information, testing data, or even marketing plans before it is released can have a devastating impact on your business. Equally as important are the financial consequences of regulatory or legal sanctions resulting from HIPAA violations if patient data is involved. Leading pharmaceutical companies use Zovy Supervisor to monitor a wide range of communication channels to ensure employees are not communicating proprietary information improperly or to unapproved organizations or individuals.
Reputational Damage
With all the communication channels available today, it is possible that at least one employee will say or do something that could later cause injury to the organization. With the rise of social media, there is the risk of embarrassment by an employee posting something publicly that can never be erased. Supervision can help mitigate this risk.
Other Risk Mitigation
Zovy’s pharmaceutical clients use Supervisor for early identification and risk mitigation in a wide variety of situations. Every large organization wants to ensure that it has created an environment where certain types of actions, such as racism, sexual harassment, and other inappropriate behavior are not allowed to flourish. Proactive monitoring works on two levels. First, the ability to identify and correct the behavior when the first inappropriate email or instant message is sent is invaluable. Once it has become a formal HR complaint or lawsuit, it’s too late and the damage is done. With early warning, organizations can more easily protect vulnerable employees, reduce legal sanctions, and avoid bad press. Second, it can help limit damages or culpability. In the event that there are unavoidable actions by a single bad actor at your organization, it allows your company to prove that they have taken steps to create a safe work environment that upholds standards. Using Supervisor can reduce risk, reduce litigation, and reduce liability in certain types of legal actions.
