FOI release

FOI2026/01080 - Employee employment with Zoetis

Published 23 September 2026

1. Your request

The VMD’s previous FOI response confirming that four former Zoetis employees have been employed or engaged by the VMD, please provide the following information for each individual.

• Previous role(s) held at Zoetis.
• Dates of employment at Zoetis.
• Country in which they worked for Zoetis.
• Date they joined the VMD.
• Date they left the VMD, where applicable.
• Full details of all positions, grades, responsibilities and reporting lines held within the VMD.
• Whether they were employed directly, seconded, contracted, retained as consultants, or otherwise engaged by the VMD.
• Whether they remain employed or engaged by the VMD.

For each individual, please provide details of any involvement in relation to the following Zoetis products:

• Librela.
• Solensia.
• Lenivia
• Portela
• Any predecessor, related, associated, or equivalent authorisation procedures.
• Any other Zoetis veterinary medicinal products.
Please include any involvement in:
• Marketing Authorisation applications.
• Scientific assessment.
• Approval decisions.
• Drafting, reviewing, editing, approving or contributing to assessment reports or regulatory documents.
• Pharmacovigilance activities.
• Signal detection activities.
• Adverse event reviews.
• Risk-benefit assessments.
• Variations.
• Renewals.
• Safety investigations.
• Referral procedures.
• Inspection planning, conduct, review or approval.
• Enforcement decisions.
• Regulatory policy development.
For each instance of involvement, please provide:
• The product concerned.
• The individual’s role.
• The dates of involvement.
• Whether they acted as lead assessor, co-assessor, reviewer, approver, manager, consultant, advisor, or in any other capacity.
• The extent of their contribution to the final regulatory outcome.

Please provide copies of any conflict-of-interest declarations, declarations of interest, recusal records, ethics reviews, conflict assessments, mitigation measures, restrictions, or governance reviews relating to these individuals and any Zoetis products.

Please also provide:
• How many of the four individuals were recruited from outside the United Kingdom.•
 The countries from which they were recruited.
• Whether any relocation assistance or recruitment incentives were provided.
• Whether any of the four individuals subsequently returned to employment, consultancy, advisory work, contracting arrangements, or any other paid engagement with Zoetis.
• If so, the dates and nature of those engagements.

Please provide any internal VMD policies, procedures, guidance documents, cooling-off requirements, post-employment restrictions, or conflict-of-interest rules that applied to these individuals during their employment or engagement with the VMD.

Please identify any meetings, correspondence, discussions, approvals, sign-offs, or decision records in which any of these four individuals participated concerning Librela or Solensia, Lenivia, Portela, including dates and the nature of their involvement.

2. Our reply

Information already provided

We refer you to our previous response FOI2026/00266, in which we provided details of declared interests and the relevant VMD policies and guidance on managing conflicts of interest.

Conflict of interest controls

As a regulatory authority, the VMD operates in accordance with the Regulators’ Code. VMD staff are also bound by the Civil Service Code, including the core principles of integrity, honesty, objectivity and impartiality.

Declarations of interest are used to assess and manage any potential conflicts. Where a conflict is identified, appropriate restrictions are applied. We can confirm that individuals are not permitted to undertake work or participate in discussions relating to products where a conflict of interest exists. In certain cases, restrictions may extend for a defined period after the conflict has ceased (for example, up to five years, depending on the nature of the interest).

Business Appointment Rules

When staff leave the VMD to take up roles outside the Civil Service, they are subject to the Business Appointment Rules (BAR). This process ensures that any external appointment does not conflict with the Civil Service Code.

Approval is required where there is a risk that:

• knowledge gained in post could provide a commercial advantage to a new employer; or
• the individual has had official dealings with that organisation.

Further details are available in the Civil Service Management Code (from page 25).

Information withheld – Section 40(2)

We have carefully considered the remainder of your request. While we hold some of the requested information, we are unable to disclose detailed information relating to identifiable individuals.

This includes, but is not limited to:

• detailed employment histories
• specific roles, grades, responsibilities and reporting lines
• dates of employment and involvement
• records of specific regulatory activities attributable to individuals
• conflict of interest documentation linked to named or identifiable persons

This information is withheld under Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Section 40(2) applies to personal data where disclosure would contravene one or more of the data protection principles set out in the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

The information requested constitutes personal data relating to identifiable individuals. Disclosure into the public domain would be unfair and would contravene the first data protection principle, which requires personal data to be processed lawfully, fairly and transparently.

In particular:

• the individuals concerned would not reasonably expect this level of detail about their employment history and regulatory activities to be disclosed publicly; and
• disclosure could impact their privacy and professional standing.

We have therefore concluded that disclosure would be unlawful and unfair.

As Section 40(2) is an absolute exemption, the public interest test does not apply.