How Veeva Works with IQVIA

Included here is a summary of the status of our lawsuit against IQVIA, how we work with IQVIA today, and what all of this means for customers.

Veeva’s antitrust lawsuit against IQVIA, filed in 2017, is still moving ahead. Due to COVID-related delays and the complexity of the case, the expected jury trial date is now in February 2025. We are confident in our case and are committed to ending IQVIA’s anti-competitive practices that are harming the industry.

Veeva is not changing our approach or retaliating against IQVIA’s monopoly abuse tactics. Veeva has always believed in openness and customer choice, and customers can continue to expect that from Veeva. This means:

IQVIA Ability to Access Veeva Software – Allowed with No Change. IQVIA is still able to access all Veeva software applications, including Vault and CRM, provided a restricted software access agreement (RSAA) is signed to protect Veeva’s intellectual property. IQVIA requests that we issue new RSAAs to them regularly. We have not denied any IQVIA request for an RSAA to date and currently have more than 100 RSAAs in place with IQVIA. This program will not change.
IQVIA Ability to Access Veeva Data – Allowed with No Change. We also continue to sign TPAs to allow IQVIA to use Veeva’s data products, such as Veeva OpenData, with IQVIA’s software products and services. This program will not change.
Veeva CRO Partner Program – IQVIA Has Chosen Not to Participate. Veeva invited IQVIA to join the Veeva CRO partner program and have worked diligently since July 2020 to have them participate in the program in support of our joint customers. IQVIA is the only large CRO that has chosen not to join the program.

What does this mean for customers using IQVIA for clinical services with Veeva technology and why has IQVIA chosen not to join the CRO partner program?

Since IQVIA elected not to join the program, they are not able to build clinical studies in Vault CDMS. Study building is a complex and critical part of running a clinical trial. The CRO partner program provides CROs the needed Veeva Vault CDMS training, support, and resources necessary to ensure customer success.
There are many options for building studies in Veeva CDMS. Customers can use other Veeva CRO partners, Veeva services, or internal resources.
The CRO partner program requires that partners sign a simple agreement that sets out the terms of the program and also allows Veeva to participate in any software or data access programs the CRO offers to other companies. IQVIA has refused to join because agreeing would mean they are required to treat Veeva fairly and allow customer choice when it comes to software and data.

We hope this provides clarity. For further questions related to Veeva’s stance on any of the matters above, please ask your Veeva account executive.

Additionally, IQVIA issued an intentionally misleading press release on May 10, 2021, about a discovery ruling. If you have further detailed questions about the discovery ruling mentioned in IQVIA’s May 10, 2021 press release, read the following FAQs.

FAQs About IQVIA’s May 10, 2021 Press Release

IQVIA issued a press release on May 10, 2021 about a ruling in the litigation between Veeva and IQVIA. What was the ruling about?

The ruling was issued by a discovery special master. The discovery special master is a person appointed to supervise the discovery phase of the lawsuit. That is the phase of a lawsuit that involves searching for and exchanging relevant documents (including electronic records) and taking depositions. The special master is not the trial judge in the lawsuit.

The ruling addressed two key items: (ii) which documents are covered by attorney-client privilege, and therefore cannot be presented to the jury as evidence, and (ii) whether Veeva failed to preserve documents in a timely manner.

Did the ruling find that Veeva misappropriated IQVIA trade secrets as IQVIA’s press release suggests?

No. The court has not even decided if IQVIA has appropriately identified any data that meet the legal requirements to be considered a trade secret. To date, IQVIA has pointed only to data that existed in the public domain (doctor names, IDs, addresses).

The court has made no finding that Veeva misappropriated IQVIA trade secrets. The discovery special master is not empowered to make such a ruling. That is a matter to be decided at trial by a jury.

What does the special master’s ruling say?

The ruling holds that some of the disputed documents are privileged and some are not. This is normal. All large, complex litigations involve disputes about which documents meet the requirements for attorney-client privilege.

The special master found that one otherwise privileged document prepared at the request of Veeva’s counsel (but not prepared by Veeva’s counsel) included future tense language suggesting a possible intent to delete certain documents. The special master found that this document can be considered by the jury at trial. The ruling did not find that any such post-litigation deletions occurred. In fact, records demonstrate that Veeva instituted the document preservation measures outlined below before any such hypothetical deletions could have occurred.

The ruling also holds that Veeva should have anticipated litigation and should have begun preserving documents in 2015 following a data leak incident that happened in connection with a data project for a joint Veeva/IQVIA customer. The project involved Veeva personnel researching and appending fields to a data file provided by the joint customer with IQVIA’s authorization.

The data leak involved an insignificant number of IQVIA doctor address records — less than 1,500, all of which Veeva had from other public sources – that were allowed to contribute to Veeva’s best address algorithm. The leak arose from a database configuration error in the system of a company called AMS that Veeva acquired in 2013.

Veeva did not anticipate litigation given the nature of the issue and the fact that it had remediated the data leak. So, Veeva did not begin preserving documents for litigation purposes until IQVIA filed a lawsuit against Veeva in 2017.

With IQVIA’s continued authorization, this same project continues to this day.

What did Veeva do to preserve documents?

Veeva’s efforts to preserve and share the relevant evidence in this litigation have been diligent and far-reaching.

When litigation began in 2017, the Veeva IT team disabled the ability for information to be deleted from any active corporate system, including email and chat, for every employee worldwide. Veeva has produced years’ worth of files, emails, text messages, and chat transcripts. Veeva has provided IQVIA with working copies of multiple data systems, including the system used to build and maintain Veeva OpenData—the product IQVIA alleges was improved by unauthorized access to IQVIA data. Veeva did not use IQVIA data to improve Veeva’s data products and we want that to be clear.

What is the impact of the ruling on the actual trial?

The impact is limited. All of Veeva’s antitrust claims against IQVIA are proceeding and we remain confident in our case.

The ruling does not materially change the facts that would have been presented to the jury. The jury will ultimately determine the outcome, possibly with an instruction that it may consider missing data to have been negative to Veeva. In our view, however, the AMS data leak (detailed above) is no excuse or justification for IQVIA’s long-running, systematic abuse of its monopoly position that harms the life sciences industry and ultimately patients. We think a jury will see through that argument.