ABPI Statement

A complaint has been upheld against the pharmaceutical company Roche over the way its co-sponsorship of the Haemophilia Society’s (THS) 2021 website refresh was presented.

Roche provided a £6,000 grant towards a £20,000 project to improve the functionality of our website. Other companies also contributed to this. Their logos and an explanation of their involvement in the project were displayed prominently at the bottom of our home page and on the footer of all pages for more than two years.

However, recently, the PMCPA (who are the self-regulatory body who administers the ABPI Code of Practice for the Pharmaceutical Industry) has found Roche to be in breach of clause 25.3 which stipulates that companies must ensure that sponsorship is acknowledged ‘from the outset’.

This is not a ruling against the Haemophilia Society, but we are keen to emphasise how seriously we take the ABPI code. We are committed to being fully transparent about our sources of funding. You can find a full explanation about our funding here.

We currently receive no government funding. The Archer Report into Contaminated Blood and Blood Products in 2009 included a recommendation that the government should ‘secure the future of the UK Haemophilia Society by adequate funding’. As a result, the Department of Health provided a grant of £100,000 per year for five years finishing in 2013/14 to help us provide services to our members. This funding did not continue.

We rely on donations to continue the unique support network that this charity offers to people affected by haemophilia and other bleeding disorders from birth to end of life. We are very grateful for your support and to all those organisations whose donations allow us to carry out our life-enhancing work.