Last updated: 23 June 2021
Astellas is a global pharmaceutical business, whose ultimate parent company is headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Our mission is to improve the lives of patients in the following key areas: transplantation, urology, oncology, and anti-infectives. For more information about Astellas, please see the "About" section of our Website at https://www.astellas.com/eu/about/.
Astellas Pharma (Pty) Ltd ("Astellas") respects your right to privacy and treats your personal information in accordance with applicable laws and regulations, including the South African Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (“POPIA) and all the regulations thereunder, which regulate and control the processing of personal information.. This Privacy Notice explains who we are, how we collect, share and use personal information about you, as a healthcare professional (HCP), and how you can exercise your privacy rights. If you have any questions or concerns about our use of your personal information, or would like to exercise any of your rights -- including to object to the processing of your personal data in the way that we describe here -- then please contact us using the details provided at the bottom of this Privacy Notice.
The data controller of your personal information is Astellas Pty Ltd with the following contact details: Astellas Pharma PTY (Ltd) South Africa, 7 Mirage Road, Bedfordview, 2007, Tel: +27-11-6159433 (Office Number).
What personal information does Astellas collect and why?
We collect information about you from a variety of sources, including directly from you and from: documents or forms that you provide in order to participate in Astellas-sponsored or supported initiatives, such as Astellas-sponsored clinical research and development activities, or in other contexts; publicly available sources; CVs and resumes; and online and other databases and websites, which may be managed by third parties on our behalf.
Astellas collects and uses the following categories of personal data for the purpose described below:
- personal details such as your name, surname and contact details;
- professional details such as your place of practice, job title, the medical field in which you are active, your professional qualifications and scientific activities (such as previous clinical trial experience, and participation in past or pending research studies with Astellas and other companies), publication of academic or scientific research and articles, and membership in health sector- associations and -boards; and
- details of interactions with us, such as what kind of meetings we have held, topics discussed, your knowledge of and questions you have had on our business and products, what kind of material we have displayed to you and any feedback that you have provided, as well as your opinions and routines on prescribing, routines regarding your patients and diagnosis, and similar information, in which the identity or other personal information relating to your patients will not be collected or used.
We process this information in our customer databases for the purpose of managing our relationship with you, including to plan potential collaboration, contact, visits and meetings; to help evaluate the information we provide you and ensure that is relevant given your expertise, interests and preferences; and to understand your scientific-therapeutic approach and satisfaction with Astellas’ products.
Who does Astellas share my personal information with?
We disclose your personal information to the following categories of recipients:
- to our group companies, third party services providers and partners who provide data processing services to us, or who otherwise process personal information for purposes that are described in this Privacy Notice or notified to you when we collect your personal information. A list of our current group companies is available here https://www.astellas.com/en/worldwide;
- to any competent law enforcement body, regulatory, government agency, court or other third party where disclosure is necessary (i) as a matter of applicable law or regulation, or (ii) to exercise, establish or defend our legal rights;
- to a potential buyer (and its agents and advisers) in connection with any proposed purchase, merger or acquisition of any part of our business, provided that we inform the buyer it must use your personal information only for the purposes disclosed in this Privacy Notice;
- to any other person with your written consent to the disclosure.
Legal basis for processing personal information
Our legal basis for collecting and using the personal information described above is our legitimate interest in maintaining a relationship with you. If you have any queries about this legal basis, please contact us using the contact details provided at the bottom of this Privacy Notice.
How does Astellas keep my personal information secure?
Astellas takes appropriate measures to secure personal information from the accidental loss and from unauthorised access, use, alteration and/or disclosure. We use reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect the personal information that we collect and process about you (e.g access controls, stringent physical security and robust information collection, storage & processing practices). The measures we use are designed to provide a level of security appropriate to the risk of processing your personal information.
International data transfers
Your personal information is transferred to, and processed in, countries other than the country in which you are resident. These countries may have data protection laws that are different to the laws of your country (and, in some cases, may not be as protective), and in which case we have contractual arrangements in place to ensure protection at the level set by South African law.
Specifically, the servers that we use to host your personal data are located in EU, Japan and the USA, and our group companies and third party service providers and partners operate around the world. This means that when we collect your personal information we may process it in any of these countries.
However, we have taken appropriate safeguards to require that your personal information will remain protected in accordance with this Privacy Notice and have ensured compliance with section 72 of the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (“POPIA”). We provide for transfers of personal information between our group companies, which require all group companies to protect personal information they process relating to South African persons, and in South African jurisdiction, in accordance with the POPIA, and where applicable, in accordance with European Union data protection law.
We have implemented similar appropriate safeguards with our third party service providers and partners and further details can be provided upon request.
Data retention
We retain personal information we collect from you where we are required by law to do so, or where have an ongoing legitimate business need to do so (for example, to provide you with a service you have requested or to comply with applicable legal, tax or accounting requirements).
When we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your personal information, we will either delete or anonymise it or, if this is not possible (for example, because your personal information has been stored in backup archives), then we will securely store your personal information and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible.
Your data protection rights
You have the following data protection rights:
- You have the right to request a copy of the personal information Astellas holds about you. To do this, please contact us using the contact details provided under the paragraph entitled “How to contact us” and specify what information you would like. We will take all reasonable steps to confirm your identity before providing details of your personal information.
- You have the right to ask Astellas to update, correct or delete your personal information. We will take all reasonable steps to confirm your identity before making changes to the personal information we may hold about you. We would appreciate it if you would take the necessary steps to keep your personal information accurate and up-to-date by notifying us of any changes we need to be aware of.
- Astellas will retain your data in compliance with the POPIA and in compliance with any other applicable legislation.
- In terms of section 18. (h)(iv) of POPIA you have the right to object to the processing of personal information as referred to in section 11(3) of the POPIA.
- In terms of section 18. (h)(v) of POPIA you have the right to lodge a complaint to the Information Regulator. The Information Regulator’s contact details are:
JD House, 27 Stiemens Street, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, 2001
P.O Box 31533, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, 2017
email: [email protected]
We respond to all requests we receive from individuals wishing to exercise their data protection rights in accordance with applicable data protection laws.
Updates to this Privacy Notice
We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time in response to changing legal, technical or business developments. When we update our Privacy Notice, we will take appropriate measures to inform you, consistent with the significance of the changes we make.
How to contact us
If you have any questions or concerns about our use of your personal information, please contact our data protection officer using the following details: [email protected].