• Veeva founded

• IQVIA starts to provide third party access (TPAs) licenses to Veeva for its customer relationship management (CRM) product

• Veeva launches new data products into the market, including Network, a master data management (MDM) solution, and OpenData, a competitor reference data product to IQVIA’s
  
• Veeva claims IQVIA refused to sign TPAs for its reference data in Veeva Network 

• IQVIA alleges that Veeva wanted to crowdsource IQVIA data into Veeva Network, and raises concerns about misuse of IQVIA data

• Veeva claims that Cegedim refuses to sign TPAs for the use of its OneKey reference data in Veeva Network 
  

• IQVIA finalises acquisition of Cegedim, expands further into the CRM and reference data space
• At the request of IQVIA, EY conducts an audit of Veeva’s assurances that it would protect against the misuse of IQVIA data in Veeva Network
• IQVIA alleges Veeva’s data misuse assurances proved to be false by the audit 

• Veeva files antitrust lawsuit against IQVIA based on IQVIA’s refusal to allow customers to load IQVIA reference data into Veeva Network
• Both companies file motions to dismiss the other’s claims – the court denies both and allows litigation to proceed on all claims 

• IQVIA files a lawsuit against Veeva for theft of IQVIA market research data and unlawful use of this data by Veeva to improve its own data offerings 

• Veeva files a second antitrust lawsuit about IQVIA’s refusal to allow customers to load IQVIA reference and sales data into Veeva Nitro 

• IQVIA files a second lawsuit against Veeva focused on data theft in Veeva’s newer applications, like Nitro

• Veeva expands its second lawsuit to include Veeva Andi

• IQVIA files a motion alerting the courts to Veeva’s destruction of evidence linked to its data theft lawsuit

IQVIA alleges that when Veeva launched MDM tool Veeva Network in 2014, it intended to crowdsource reference data held in Veeva’s CRM; IQVIA had been providing TPAs to Veeva for its CRM product for around seven years by this point. 

Although IQVIA acknowledged that Veeva dropped the idea of crowdsourcing the data following discussions, this incident is when IQVIA views the problems between the two companies about data theft and misuse to have begun. 

Veeva categorically denies it ever planned to crowdsource data from other vendors, and notes it made this clear in writing many times to IQVIA. Instead, it used the term ‘crowdsourcing’ to refer to how it gathered data from pharma sales reps about their real-world observations. This is something Veeva claims is “standard throughout the industry”, and alleges “IQVIA does the same thing and has also used the term crowdsourcing to refer to its own processes,” in the words of Shawah. 

The company also notes that this is an example of IQVIA spreading incorrect information in order to protect its monopoly and continue to be anti-competitive. 

As IQVIA continued to be uncomfortable with potential data misuse by Veeva, it requested that EY conduct an audit of Veeva’s assurances in 2015. IQVIA noted the results of the audit suggested Veeva’s data protection assurances were false, causing another impasse between the two companies. 

This was followed in 2016 by one of IQVIA’s life sciences customers reaching out to say they had discovered Veeva had, had inappropriate access to IQVIA data through Veeva CRM. IQVIA alleges this allowed Veeva to analyse IQVIA data to identify  gaps that Veeva’s offerings could fill; IQVIA claims Veeva’s general counsel admitted this had happened. 

IQVIA then entered into a pilot with another shared client to work through the data misuse issues in good faith, however, Ashman concludes: “It became pretty clear from the discussions at the very tail end of that pilot, that our data was routinely being misused, and…Veeva did not have any real intention of addressing our concerns.” 

Talking generally, Shawah states: “Their claims [about improving our offerings] are entirely false. Our view is that IQVIA never intended to allow its data to be used in newer software products no matter the outcome of our discussions. We believe these were just stall tactics, IQVIA’s motives were always anticompetitive.”

Veeva’s 2018 response to IQVIA’s litigation, shared with Pharma Technology Focus, notes that the company remedied all areas of concern brought up by the audit. Shawah adds that “the lengths Veeva went to reach a resolution with IQVIA are unprecedented”, creating a secure data connection to protect IQVIA’s data and separated the personnel with access to Veeva and IQVIA data. 

Regarding Veeva’s alleged inappropriate access to a customer’s IQVIA data through its CRM, Shawah explains about Veeva’s Data Report Cards scheme and how a customer realised, after initiating the process, that “it had inadvertently authorised Veeva’s use of a data extract that contained data from IQVIA without IQVIA’s authorization, so it informed Veeva that it wished to terminate the Data Report Card, and it asked Veeva to delete the sample data extract,” which Veeva did. 

“This led to a discussion between IQVIA’s in-house counsel and Veeva's in-house counsel during which Veeva's in-house counsel explained that the sample data extract had been deleted and had not contributed to or been commingled with Veeva’s OpenData product. Veeva considered the issue resolved,” he added.

Ashman alleges that when looking through discovery supplied by Veeva, IQVIA discovered that its competitor had: “destroyed a great deal of evidence intentionally. 

He continued: “This occurred around the time of the EY audit, then later on with the client incident a year later, and then even after the filing of the lawsuit.”

According to IQVIA’s redacted filing (shared with Pharma Technology Focus) the company requests that the court impose significant sanctions against Veeva for its alleged intentional act of destroying evidence and that the court enters a default judgement in favour of IQVIA in its data theft claims against Veeva. 

“IQVIA is spreading false information as they try to justify their bad behaviour and divert attention away from their monopolistic practices,” states Shawah. “Their allegations are baseless, without merit, and full of wildly exaggerated claims. They are simply attempting to prevent the case reaching trial.” 

Veeva will be filing its response to this sanctions motion in mid-May. 

“Their long history of abuse started with very restrictive data use policies,” Shawah alleges. “They have made it extremely difficult for customers to use IQVIA data with competing software products, not only Veeva, but other vendors as well. This is a well-known fact throughout the industry.” 

Shawah claims IQVIA’s TPA policies are unnecessarily “cumbersome” and complex. He notes that sometimes it can take days or weeks for TPAs to be approved, and that pharma companies must apply for a license for “every use case, for every vendor and for every country combination.” According to Veeva, this is in stark contrast to how it conducts TPAs with rival vendors. 

He provides the example of Symphony Health to substantiate Veeva’s claims about IQVIA’s anticompetitive heritage. This company filed an antitrust against IQVIA in 2013 alleging IQVIA used its monopoly power to control access to and sales of Symphony data. 

“I’ve been with the company for 31 years, I am having trouble finding evidence of this long-standing monopolistic behaviour,” states Ashman. “Our TPA programme is designed for quite the opposite; Veeva has received well over 1,000 TPA licenses from IQVIA, so the notion we are being anti-competitive is ridiculous.” He adds that Veeva is one of the top five recipients of IQVIA’s TPA programme. 

Despite admitting that its TPA programme can be quite slow, Ashman notes IQVIA has greatly improved the system to make it “easier and faster for everybody”.  

With regard to the Symphony Health case back in 2013, Ashman argues “Veeva’s reference to the 2013 Symphony lawsuit to support its current claims is both false and misleading - in 2016, Symphony acknowledged its claims were unsupported by the evidence in that lawsuit after two years of litigation.” 

Veeva claims IQVIA is simply proving its monopolistic behaviour by “attempting to extend their market dominance by preventing customers from using IQVIA in newer competitive products”, such as Nitro and Andi.

“If a customer decides they want product A or product B, we think that should be based on the merits of the product, not what one of their vendors tell them they should do,” argues Shawah. This action by IQVIA “is not good for Veeva’s business, but more importantly it is frustrating for customers.” 

As the legal cases got underway, “we decided to continue to issue TPA licenses consistent with past practice”, such as for CRM, which life science customers had become accustomed to, Ashman notes, but “as Veeva expanding into new offerings…it just didn’t make any sense to us that we would enable…new methods of stealing our data.” 

By “artificially limiting” the choice pharma companies have in terms of vendors and data sets they want to use, “IQVIA is… slowing and preventing pharma manufacturers from creating the patterns customers need to better identify and treat patients,” Shawah alleges. 

Shawah also claims that IQVIA’s cumbersome TPA licenses approach feeds into how they are causing inefficiencies for pharma customers: “if you delay a multibillion project by a day, a week or a month, that really expensive [and] it slows down their ability to bring new innovation to the marketplace.” 

“This [dispute] affects very few individuals in a small number of pharma companies. As far as [most people are concerned] this is a fight between two vendors who need to get it worked out, so it doesn’t become an issue,” Ashman notes. 

Moving forward IQVIA wants Veeva’s “past unlawful use of our intellectual property [to be] addressed” so IQVIA can set the rules going forward to allow it to comfortably license its data in more Veeva offerings in the future.