This Policy is a statement of our general privacy policy and practices governing the ways in which we collect, hold and use information about individual persons. This Policy exclusively applies to data gathered by us from online resources that display a link to this policy and not from any other source. BY USING THIS WEBSITE, YOU CONSENT TO THE COLLECTION AND USE OF INFORMATION AS SET FORTH IN THIS PRIVACY POLICY. YOU ALSO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT NOVARTIS PHARMACEUTICALS CANADA INC. MAY PERIODICALLY CHANGE, MODIFY, ADD OR REMOVE OR OTHERWISE UPDATE THIS PRIVACY POLICY AT ITS DISCRETION, WITHOUT PRIOR NOTIFICATION. It is our intention to post any such changes on this page so that you are fully informed concerning the types of information we are gathering, how we use it, and under what circumstances it may be disclosed.

At certain data collection points, further explanation may be provided, where appropriate, as to the purposes for which the data will be used. This Policy, coupled with any supplementary explanation, will tell you how we will treat any data about yourself that you voluntarily submit in connection with your use of our websites.

Personal medical data, and blood pressure readings will be kept confidential and secured as described in the Privacy Policy, and as required by Canadian laws. Your personal file is anonymous and will not be looked at in an individual manner. Consult your doctor for any personal medical evaluation you think necessary.

The term "personal data" as used in this Policy refers to information such as your name, birth date, email address, mailing address, or telephone number, that can be used to identify you. Novartis Pharmaceuticals Canada Inc. will not process your personal data without your consent. However, we reserve the right, in exceptional circumstances to conduct additional processing to the extent permitted or required by law.

The next sections explain how and when we collect personal data from you.

Most of our services do not require any form of registration, allowing you to visit our site without telling us who you are. However, some services may require registration. When you register with us, you may need to complete certain fields (some are required and some are optional), as well as choose a user name and password. In these situations, if you choose to withhold any personal data requested by us, it may not be possible for you to gain access to certain parts of the site and for us to respond to your query.

We process personal data for the purposes which we inform you about when we ask you for information. For example, we may collect and use personal data to provide you with products or services, to bill you for products and services you request, to market products and services which we think may be of interest to you, or to communicate with you for other purposes. Information you send to our customer service department is used only to help resolve your problem and is otherwise kept confidential.

We keep your data in accordance with any applicable legal or ethical reporting or documentation retention requirements.

We will not sell, share, or otherwise distribute your personal data to third parties except as provided in this Privacy Policy. We may disclose your personally identifiable information to other Novartis affiliates worldwide that agree to treat it in accordance with this Privacy Policy, but only in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy. Personal data may occasionally be transferred to third parties who act for or on behalf of Novartis Pharmaceuticals Canada Inc., or in connection with the business of the Novartis Group, for further processing in accordance with the purpose(s) for which the data were originally collected, such as delivery services, evaluation or technical support. These third parties have contracted with Novartis Pharmaceuticals Canada Inc. that they will only use personal data for the agreed upon purpose, and will not sell your personal information to third parties, and will not disclose it to third parties except as may be required by law.

There are two additional instances in which personal data collected from you may be transferred to a third party. The first is in the event that the business of this site and the customer data connected with it is sold, assigned or transferred, in which case we would require the buyer, assignee or transferee to treat personal data in accordance with this Privacy Policy. The second instance in which personal data may be disclosed to a third party is if we are required to do so because of an applicable law, court order, governmental regulation, or investigation. In such cases, the personal data may be transferred to third parties to process for or on behalf of Novartis Pharmaceuticals Canada Inc. These third parties have contracted with Novartis Pharmaceuticals Canada Inc. that they will only use personal data in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy.

Where such disclosure of personal data to a third party occurs, we will endeavour to ensure that the processing is performed in accordance with the purposes and within the limits under which the data were originally collected.

You have the right to ensure that your personal data is always up-to-date. In some countries, you have the legal right to require us to correct or delete your personal data. In addition, you can always tell us to stop contacting you. If you wish to contact us regarding our use of your personal data, please email us by clicking the link below. If you contact us, please note the name of the website where you provided the information, as well as the specific information you would like us to correct, update, or delete. Your requests will be dealt with in a prompt and proper manner. Requests to delete personal data will be subject to any applicable legal and ethical reporting or document filing or retention obligations imposed on us.

To ensure the security and confidentiality of personal data that we collect on-line, we use data networks protected, inter alia, by industry standard firewall and password protection. In the course of handling your personal data, we take measures reasonably designed to protect that information from loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration or destruction. While we cannot guarantee against any loss, misuse, or alteration to data, we try to prevent such unfortunate occurrences.

We are part of the Novartis Group which has databases in different jurisdictions. We may transfer your data to one of the Group's databases outside your country of domicile. Even if the country to which the data is to be transferred does not require us to provide adequate protection for your data, we will nonetheless seek to ensure that data transfers to Novartis databases in that country are adequately protected.

We may collect and process anonymous information about your visit to this website, such as some of the pages you visit and some of the searches you perform. Such anonymous information is used by us to help improve the contents of the site and to compile aggregate statistics about individuals using our site for internal, market research purposes. In doing this, we may install "cookies" that collect the first level domain name of the user (e.g., "bigmail.com" from an email address of "john@bigmail.com") and the date and time of access. "Cookies" as used by us cannot be used to discover the identity of an individual user. A "cookie" is a small piece of information which is sent to your browser and stored on your computer's hard drive. Cookies do not damage your computer. You can set your browser to notify you when you receive a "cookie", this will enable you to decide if you want to accept it or not. We may obtain the services of outside parties to assist us in collecting and processing the information described in this Section and all such third parties will be placed under the obligations described above in Paragraph 3.

On occasion, we may use Internet tags (also known as action tags, single-pixel GIFs, clear GIFs, invisible GIFs, and 1-by-1 GIFs) in combination with cookies at this site and may deploy these tags through a third-party advertising partner. These tags are placed on both online advertisements that bring users to the site and on different pages of the site. We use this technology to measure the visitors' responses to our sites and the effectiveness of our advertising campaigns (including how many times a page is opened and which information is consulted). The third-party partner may be able to collect anonymous aggregated data about visitors to other sites because of these Internet tags/cookies. Please be assured that we DO NOT collect or seek through these tags or cookies any personally identifiable information about our visitors, such as names, addresses, email addresses or telephone numbers. If you would like more information about web tags and cookies associated with on-line advertising or to opt-out of third-party collection of anonymous information, please visit:

Most of the services available on this site are intended for persons 18 years of age and older. Any individual who requests information about a medicine indicated for use in children must be 18 or over. We will not knowingly collect, use or disclose personal data from a minor, without obtaining prior consent from a person with parental responsibility (e.g., a parent or guardian) through direct off-line contact. We will provide the parent with (i) notice of the specific types of personal data being collected from the minor, and (ii) the opportunity to object to any further collection, use, or storage of such information. We abide by laws designed to protect children.

This Privacy Policy applies only to this website to the exclusion of third party websites. We may provide links to other websites which we believe may be of interest to our visitors. We aim to ensure that such websites are of the highest standard. However, due to the nature of the World Wide Web, we cannot guarantee the privacy standards of every website to which we link or be responsible for the contents of sites other than this one, and this Privacy Policy is not intended to be applicable to any linked, non-Novartis site.

If you have any queries or complaints about our compliance with this Privacy Policy, or if you would like to make any recommendations or comments to improve the quality of our Privacy Policy, please email us by clicking the link below.

This privacy policy was last updated on April 2, 2004. We aim to constantly improve the tools available to you to manage the data that you provide to us. Please refer to this page from time to time to review these and other new features.