We welcome the opportunity to hear from you and would like to share some simple ‘house rules’ to help everybody get the best from the community.

We work in regulated industries and because of the unique legal situation in the healthcare space, we cannot engage in sensitive topics, or discussion(s) about products – ours or other companies’ – or treatment options on this channel. For this reason, we want to make sure the discussions that take place on the channel stay on topic and are constructive. Novartis (or hired agent) will routinely monitor comments and affiliations appearing on our company account.

If your comment(s) do not comply with the following basic rules, they will be removed:

  • If your comment(s) are product related;
  • If your comment(s) include profanity, defamatory, libelous, offensive, abusive, discriminatory or demeaning content (including images, video, and links);
  • If your comment(s) are disparaging, threatening, condone violence or illegal behavior;
  • If your comment(s) are off-topic;
  • If your comment(s) offer health or medical advice;
  • If your comment(s) contain any personal information e.g. names of individuals, email address, or phone number;
  • If your comment(s) violate another’s copyright or intellectual property;
  • If your comment(s) are commercial, e.g. selling products and services, or recruiting fans and followers;
  • If your comment(s) are excessively repetitive and/or disruptive to the community or are spam;
  • If your comment(s) contain proprietary, confidential, sensitive, or nonpublic information;
  • If your comment(s) don’t follow the Instagram Terms of Service: 

Please be aware that followers who continuously and repeatedly contravene the above rules may be removed from our follower list. In this case, the user would no longer be able to follow our news or comment on our posts.

Medical side effects or adverse events

If you believe that you have experienced any medical side effects or reactions from a Novartis product, you should consult your physician, pharmacist or other healthcare professional immediately. You can also report these to us directly using the information found on Novartis.com.

We suggest sharing as little personal information as possible on our Instagram account especially sharing any specific data concerning your personal health should be avoided. Should you, however, decide to include a comment detailing any side effects, Novartis may need to contact you to find out more information. Comments of this nature will be removed from the channel; this is due to legal obligations concerning drug safety reporting.

Storing and using private information

Content you share in this channel is available to the public. Novartis may process, store and use information you chose to share through this channel for reasons such as improving its products and services, reporting adverse events or providing you with assistance upon your request. To facilitate requests, we may ask for additional information which will only be used for the purpose it was initially collected.

In case of an adverse event or product issue you report to us, we will need to store and use information you provide in accordance with the applicable laws. This information is required to be submitted to our Novartis Drug Safety department and/or regulatory authorities. In such case, we are also required to store your personal data to comply with legal and regulatory requirements/obligations.

If you share personal information relating to other people, you represent that you have the authority to lawfully do so and to permit us to use the information.

Please kindly note that we may use 3rd party service providers to help us manage your comments and direct messages, which means that they too would have access to any personal information you share with us. Such 3rd party service providers are contractually bound to ensure an adequate protection and security of your personal information.

Please note that Instagram also has access to information you share with us through their platform. For more details read the Instagram Privacy Policy.

For additional information about privacy at Novartis, read our Privacy Policy.

Thank you for reading and being a part of the Instagram community.