At Ferring, your privacy is important to us and we are committed to ensuring our data protection practices adhere to applicable European and local national data protection regulations.
This Pharmacovigilance Privacy Notice describes how Ferring collects, holds and processes personal data to fulfil our duty to monitor the safety of all Ferring medicines, also known as our pharmacovigilance obligations. This Pharmacovigilance Privacy Notice also describes the ways in which we will ensure your personal data is protected in accordance with the applicable regulations.
Why do we collect your personal data?
What personal data do we collect about you?
What do we use your personal data for?
Which is the legal basis for processing your personal data?
With whom do we share your personal data?
Where will the personal data be held and will it be transferred to another country?
How do we ensure the security and protection of your personal data?
For the purpose of safety (pharmacovigilance) reporting, Ferring is legally obliged to collect specific personal data in relation to individuals who use our products.
When you, your doctor or a third party provide Ferring with information on an adverse event experienced with the use of our products, we collect and process personal data where relevant and necessary to document the adverse event properly and to meet our pharmacovigilance obligations. These obligations exist to allow Ferring and regulatory authorities to manage adverse events and make efforts to prevent similar events from happening in the future.
The personal data that we may collect about you when you are the subject of an adverse event:
The personal data that we may collect about you when you are the reporter of an adverse event:
If you are also the subject of a report, this information will be combined with the information you provide in relation to the adverse event. We will only collect the minimum data required for the purposes of fulfilling our pharmacovigilance obligations.
Pharmacovigilance laws require us to collect information about the safety of our products. As a result, we must keep enough information to allow us to investigate adverse events and to request additional information. We will compare the information about the adverse event with information about other adverse events received by Ferring to properly analyse and assess the safety of the product(s) over time and to update the safety information available to patients, prescribers and regulatory authorities.
To do this, we keep the information for the period permitted by the applicable law.
Ferring will only use personal data collected for pharmacovigilance for this purpose and will not hold or process this data for any other purpose without notifying you in advance and/or obtaining the appropriate consent.
Personal data is collected, handled and processed to fulfil pharmacovigilance obligations which serve as a legal requirement for public interest and public health reasons and therefore consent from data subjects prior to collection and processing is not required.
We share the information with regulatory authorities such as the European Medicines Agency, The US Food & Drug Administration and Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency in the UK, in accordance with national pharmacovigilance laws in the countries, where we market our product.
We may also share the information with other pharmaceutical companies, who are our co‐ marketing, co-distribution or other license partners, where pharmacovigilance obligations for a product require such exchange of information. This means that your information will be shared outside of your country to countries that may have other requirements for data protection.
We may publish information about the safety of our products. We will remove identifiers from any publications, so that no individual can be identified.
We may also transfer data to a third party in the event of a sale, assignment, transfer, or acquisition of the company or a specific product or therapeutic area, in which case we would require the buyer, assignee or transferee to treat that personal data in accordance with applicable data protection law.
Our pharmacovigilance obligations require us to review patterns across adverse event reports received from all countries, where we market our products. To meet these requirements, information provided as part of an adverse event report is kept under secure conditions in the local Ferring office in the country/region of the report and is transferred to Ferring headquarters. Upon transfer, only the minimum data required is included. Any names and contact details of patients and reporter are hidden, meaning that only information on age/age group, date of birth and gender is transferred in addition to the information concerning the reaction and the health of the patient.
Any such transfers outside of the European Economic Area will be safeguarded by internal international data transfer agreements, to ensure that your personal data is protected in accordance with the applicable European and national data protection laws.
Ferring maintains a number of appropriate technical and organisational security measures to safeguard your personal data from unauthorised access, use, disclosure, accidental destruction or loss. For example, where appropriate, Ferring is committed to the encryption, anonymisation or pseudonymisation of personal data, and personal data will be stored securely in a designated system. Our internal policies and procedures are designed to prioritise and promote the protection of personal data.
While our data security measures are continually evaluated and updated, the security of data transferred via the internet from a computer or other device cannot be guaranteed and you are encouraged to take steps to protect yourself online and against unauthorised use of your passwords, and mobile devices, as well as installing the appropriate firewall, anti-virus and antispyware protections for your computer.
A non-exhaustive list of possible data incidents may include,
If you suspect any security compromise or detect vulnerabilities, it is essential to report these data incidents immediately by using the Data Subject Contact Form.
If and when we collect, hold and process your personal data, you will be afforded specific rights as a data subject. Ferring will give effect to these rights in accordance with the applicable European and local national data protection laws and where pharmacovigilance laws permit. Your rights as a data subject are the following:
If you would like further information about your rights as a data subject, please see the general Ferring Privacy Notice. In case you wish to submit a request in relation to a data subject right, please use the Data Subject Contact Form. We will respond to an incoming request as soon as possible.
Any changes to this Privacy Notice will be communicated on the Ferring Pharmaceuticals Ltd website www.ferring.co.uk. We recommend you consult our Privacy Notice periodically to review any changes and to keep informed about our ongoing commitment to respecting the right to privacy and to providing the highest possible level of data protection.
Personal data submitted to Ferring is stored locally in the country of origin as well as in the Ferring global safety database on servers situated within the EEA. The servers are owned and maintained by Ferring Pharmaceuticals A/S, whose principal place of business is at Kay Fiskers Plads 11, DK-2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark.
If you have any questions or comments regarding this Privacy Notice please contact Ferring Ireland Ltd and Ferring local mailbox EnquiriesIrelandMailbox@ferring.com in the country/region to where the data was initially reported.
In case you wish to:
• Report a data incident or suspected personal data breach,
• Submit a request to exercise your rights as a data subject, or
• Contact the Global Data Protection Officer with a general enquiry,
please utilise the Data Subject Contact Form.
Alternatively, mail us to the following address:
(Att.: Data Protection Officer)
Ferring International Center S.A.
Chemin De la Vergognausaz 50
1162 St Prex
Switzerland
or, at the EU Representative for GDPR,
(Att.: Data Protection Officer)
Ferring International PharmaScience Center (IPC)
Kay Fiskers Plads 11
2300 Copenhagen S
Denmark
This Safety Information Notice was last updated on 27/10/2021.