The core mission of Biogen Idec is to enhance the health and quality of care for its customers through superior products and service. This mission is enabled by customer relationships, in which Biogen Idec has enough information about customers to provide information, services, and products based on customer needs and preferences. Biogen Idec believes that respect for customer privacy is fundamental to these relationships.

As part of its overall mission for its customers, Biogen Idec offers customer service support, information, programs and products to its customers. To most appropriately match these services and products with customer needs, Biogen Idec endeavors to understand the specific needs and preferences of individual customers who volunteer this information. In this way, customers will receive the highest quality support from Biogen Idec.


Biogen Idec may, from time to time, request and/or save customer information such as:

	•		Name, phone number, address, etc. to enable Biogen Idec to contact customers.
	•		Demographic information to better tailor information and services.
	•		A record of a customer service call to better service the next call.
	•		Information about a customer's disease, therapy and treating physician to better direct information and services.
	•		Information about additional customer needs, attitudes, and behaviors to assist in delivering individual value and developing new offerings and programs.

Biogen Idec shares customer information only with individuals or organizations who have a specific "need to know" to enable delivery or development of information or programs for customers, including:

	•		Biogen Idec, to provide information, services, or other offers they believe will be of value to customers, or to contact customers from time to time to get customer feedback, insight, and reactions for purposes of providing higher-quality support and service.
	•		From time to time, companies expressly operating on behalf of Biogen Idec to better service the product and the customer, and who have also entered into written confidentiality agreements with Biogen Idec to maintain the security and privacy of customer information. (Examples would be third-party companies contracted by Biogen Idec, to perform such tasks as mailing information on behalf of Biogen Idec offering information on available, free customer education programs about the product or illness, or to gain customer feedback or insight).
	•		Physicians and/or patient advocacy groups in rare instances where Biogen Idec believes that they can provide relevant information or programs that may be of value to customers; only name and address would be provided for a one-time use.
	•		Government agencies, as required by law.

While Biogen Idec will endeavor to provide rationale to patients outlining the benefits of a relationship with Biogen Idec, patients are recognized as the ultimate authority on whether there is value in the relationship. With respect to seeking patient permission for communication, care will be taken to be as specific as possible about the nature of subsequent Biogen Idec-initiated communication so that a reasonable and accurate expectation is created in the minds of patients. Biogen Idec will also respect patient desires not to be contacted through a specific channel of communication. When Biogen Idec communicates with patients by mail, care will be taken not to use the term(s) of the disease on the outside envelope.



Biogen Idec believes that customers are provided the most value as the relationship grows and Biogen Idec learns more about a customer. To that end, Biogen Idec will solicit information from customers from time to time. Additionally, customers have a right to know, when they ask, what information is held in a database, how it is used, how it is safeguarded, and, if not satisfied, to refuse the information request and/or ask that their information not be used in the future.



Biogen Idec will not assume that patients or their carepartners agree to be contacted unless the patient or carepartner agrees, either verbally or in writing.



Biogen Idec will continue to communicate with physicians for purposes of offering information, programs, services, and other offers. Physicians can request to be removed from Biogen Idec mailing lists.



Upon customer request through any communication medium, to the extent allowed by law, Biogen Idec will take the customer off communication lists and not continue any form of communication. Customers will be made aware of this right and the process to follow in such a request.

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Biogen Idec will not sell or share names of customers or any detailed customer information to independent companies so that those companies could solicit Biogen customers for the purpose of selling goods or services unrelated to Biogen Idec.

Your privacy matters — Our core mission is to enhance the health and quality of care for our customers through superior products and service. This mission is enabled by customer relationships, where we know our customers enough to provide information, services, and products based on customer needs and preferences. Biogen Idec believes that respect for customer privacy is fundamental to these relationships.

	1.		We protect your information — We take precautions to safeguard your information, including the use of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology, to protect your data (e.g., your name and address). Biogen Idec will not sell or share names of customers or any detailed customer information to independent companies that may be interested in selling goods or services unrelated to Biogen Idec.
	2.		You receive only what interests you — We collect your email address to send you information about our site and services. However, you may indicate that you do not wish to receive this information. We will not send you information about our products and services unless you explicitly agree to receive such information.

Why we request and save customer information
Information we collect and how we collect it
Who has access to your information
How we use the information we collect
Security policy
Links to other sites
Right to know and opt-out
Endorsement by VeriSign
Changes to the Privacy Statement



As part of our overall mission for our customers, we offer information, programs, products, and customer service support. Understanding the specific preferences of individual customers allows us to match our information and services to customer needs, and provide the highest quality support to our customers.



Personal Information: On MSActiveSource.com and Avonex.com, Biogen Idec collects personally identifiable data, such as your name, address, or email address, only when you voluntarily submit it to us. We collect this information when you become a site member or when you change your user preferences in “Edit Profile.”

Session Information: We track the total number of visitors to our site, the number of visitors to different pages of the site, the domain names of site users' Internet service providers, and other information related to the performance and behavior of a given site visit.

Advertisement Trail: If you come to our site by clicking on a banner ad or some other form of advertisement, we use clear gifs, or pixel tags, to learn which banner ads bring users to our site. The information we collect and share through this technology is not personally identifiable.

Cookies: As a convenience, we offer an automatic login ("Remember My Username and Password") feature for site members. If you select this option, our system stores your login information in a file (called a "cookie") on your computer so you don't have to type in your username and password every time you visit. You can always choose to turn this option off whenever you log out of our site.

Polls and Surveys: We sometimes offer polls and surveys on the site. The input you provide on polls and surveys is tracked at an aggregate level, and is not personally identifiable.



Biogen Idec shares customer information only with individuals or organizations who have a specific "need to know", including:

	•		Biogen Idec, to provide information, services or other offers we believe will be of value to customers, or to contact customers from time to time to get customer feedback, insight and reactions to provide higher-quality support and service
	•		From time to time, companies expressly operating on behalf of Biogen Idec to better service the product and the customer, and who have also entered into written confidentiality agreements with Biogen Idec to maintain the security and privacy of customer information. (Examples would be third-party companies contracted by Biogen Idec to perform such tasks as mailing information on behalf of Biogen Idec, or to gain customer feedback or insight)
	•		Physicians and/or patient advocacy groups in rare instances where Biogen Idec believes that they can provide relevant information or programs that may be of value to customers; only name and address would be provided for a one-time use
	•		Government agencies, as required by law

Personal Information: In most cases, we and/or the companies we hire use your personal data to "personalize" your site experience, that is, to provide you with the information and features that we believe might suit your stated interests the best. For example, if you have chosen to identify yourself as an MS patient currently on treatment, our system may display content on your specific treatment more prominently than other content.

Some of our trained employees will have access to your username so that they can provide special technical assistance, should you need it. Your password remains encrypted in our database. Occasionally, we and/or the companies we hire may refer to your profile information or usage patterns to better understand your needs or to ascertain how we can improve our products and services. In these cases, the results of our analysis remain at an aggregate level (the average or total across many users, for example). We only work with companies expressly operating on behalf of Biogen Idec and who have entered into written confidentiality agreements with Biogen Idec to maintain the security and privacy of customer information.

We may use your address or email address to contact you about administrative notices or site information. If you have indicated in your Member Profile that you are interested in receiving information about Biogen Idec's products and services, or about programs that may be of interest to you, we and/or the individuals or organizations who have a specific “need to know” (see “Who has access to your information”) will use your data to send you this information. Biogen Idec will not sell or share names of customers or any detailed customer information to independent companies that may be interested in selling goods or services unrelated to Biogen Idec.

Session Information: We use session information to understand how users interact with our site. This helps us improve our site features, content, and performance. The results of our analysis are used in aggregate and are not personally identified.

Advertisement Trail: We track advertisement response rate, e.g., which banner ads bring users to our sites, to gauge our market promotion efforts and to create effective advertisements. We use this information only at an aggregate level.

Cookies: The information we collect from cookies is used to validate your identity automatically. We offer this feature to make it easier for you to login to the site. Occasionally we may use cookies to help analyze site usage. The results of our analysis are used in aggregate, and are not personally identified.

Polls and Surveys: We calculate and track poll and survey results (e.g., 70 percent think they have good relationships with their doctors) to improve our site offerings based on your input about your needs and preferences. We use this information only at an aggregate level.

Mentor Program: The information collected under the Mentor Program is stored as part of your user profile and is used to match you with others who are expressly seeking contact with a buddy or mentor.



Data Transmission: Maintaining your security is very important to us. Our site uses industry-standard 128-bit Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol to transmit data between your computer and ours.

Login: To prevent other people from using your account, we require that you login with both a username and a password. If you are sharing a computer with other users, you should not enable Automatic Login (“Remember my username and password”), since that would permit other users on your computer to access the website with your username and password.

Session Timeout: Your session will automatically expire and log you out if it is left inactive for an extended period of time.

Please remember that you also play a valuable part in ensuring your security. You should never share your password with anyone. If you feel that others may have found out your password, you should change it immediately on the “Edit Profile” page.



Our sites contain links to a number of other non-Biogen Idec sites that we believe may offer useful information. While we try to link to reputable and useful sites, the privacy policies and procedures outlined here do not apply to those sites. You should contact those sites directly for information on their privacy policies and data collection and usage procedures.



We reserve the right to send you specific administrative notices about your account or to contact you if required by law. You may also receive, with your prior consent, periodic site newsletters by email. Additional information about our other services and products will be sent to you only if you have expressly chosen to receive such information. If you do not wish to receive site newsletters or additional information you may remove yourself from communication lists easily by changing your preferences in "Edit Profile". You may also call us at 1-800-456-2255 or send a letter requesting that you receive no further Biogen Idec communication.

In addition to what is detailed in this Privacy Statement, you have a right to know, when you ask, what information about you is held in our database, how it is used, how it is safeguarded, and, if not satisfied, to refuse the information request and/or ask that your information not be used in the future.



If we change our Internet privacy policies or practices as described here, we will post the changes on this privacy statement. We may also send you an email notification.