If your company’s compliance program hasn’t been substantially upgraded in recent years, you’re missing out on significant technological advances and leaving your business vulnerable to dangerous breaches. Many leaders will balk at updating their systems because of the cost. But the reality is, a state-of-the-art program should reduce costs by sharpening the focus of compliance efforts and reducing wasted time and resources. I recently contributed an article to MedCity News, that will help companies assess whether their program is out of date and help them bring it up to speed. In part:
“Life sciences companies tend to consider themselves leaders when it comes to compliance policies.
In one sense they’re right. The close sales relations between their distribution agents and state-linked doctors and hospitals have long made them vulnerable to corrupt practices and put a target on their back for enforcement under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or other legislation. As such, life sciences companies — especially those with markets abroad — were among the first to really get organized around third-party compliance, setting up systems to research and monitor compliance practices among their partners.
But that first-mover advantage is inexorably fading as they persist with 5-15 year-old third-party compliance systems that are no longer best in class. Other sectors, such as software providers, have leapt ahead by taking advantage of technology advances.
There are four broad areas where a company’s compliance system could be showing its age and creating unnecessary risks. Asking yourself some tough questions and addressing possible lapses now can save your company millions of dollars in fines and reputational damage.”
READ THE FULL ARTICLE – Four signs your compliance program is out of date