In a landmark judgement, the Higher Regional Court of Cologne has set new standards for pharmaceutical advertising with influencers. First, a key point from the decision is that the court qualifies paid influencers as agents of the drug company with respective consequences for the company (discussed below). Second, the court treats promotional social media reels/videos like TV ads which leads to subsequent disclosure obligations. Third, influencers can regularly qualify as “known persons” so that the restrictions under German law for drug advertising with known/famous persons can apply. Continue reading for more details on the case and its implications for pharmaceutical companies.

1. What had happened in the case?

The decision of the Higher Regional Court of Cologne (Judgment of 11 September 2025 – case no. 6 U 118/24) dealt with following facts: A pharmaceutical company had engaged an influencer to advertise its OTC medicinal product. At issue was an 18-second reel labelled as advertisement and posted by the influencer on her Instagram account. The influencer had 130.000 followers there. In the actual video, the viewers can see the influencer wake up ill, then she takes the advertised medicinal product and shortly after that she significantly recovers and even returns to her daily routine in a noticeably improved and positive mood.

While the video itself did not contain any spoken or written promotional information, the viewer was provided with a link under the video to the mandatory product information that needs to be provided in German drug advertisements. The ad was challenged, leading to this lawsuit.

As result of the litigation, the Cologne High Court has prohibited this influencer advertisement as it found that it violates German pharma advertising laws.

2. Findings of the Court

1. Paid Influencer qualifies as agent of the Pharmaceutical Company

The Cologne court found that the paid advertising partnership qualifies the influencer as an agent of the drug company under the German Unfair Competition Act (UWG). This means that the company becomes liable for the influencer’s actions under the partnership. Accordingly, the court held the company legally responsible for the influencer’s actions even though the influencer had recorded the reel herself and posted it on her own Instagram account. This is a quite broad interpretation of the “agent” concept under German law, but the court found this to be appropriate as companies that expand their commercial scope through such partnerships must consequently bear the risks of legal violations by their partners.

2. Advertising in social media reels/video must comply with rules for TV ads

As a second issue, the court reviewed the requirements for mandatory disclosures for social media reels that contain pharmaceutical advertising. In the case, the influencer had added a link to the mandatory product information (“Pflichtangaben”) to her reel. These mandatory information are typically displayed in static advertisements. The Cologne court held that this was not appropriate for social media reels. Rather, the court required to use the mandatory disclosures that are required under German law for TV ads.

The court elaborated on this by noting that unlike print or static web ads, users consume reels with a reduced attention span similar to the consumption of TV ads (“audiovisual media”). For pharmaceutical ads on TV, however, German law requires a brief mandatory statement at the end of the ad that has to be read aloud and visibly displayed. This mandatory disclosure in audiovisual media states: “Zu Risiken und Nebenwirkungen lesen Sie die Packungsbeilage und fragen Sie Ihre Ärztin, Ihren Arzt oder in Ihrer Apotheke” (Section 4 (5) HWG). This honors the fact that long written information cannot be adequately conveyed in audiovisual media.

Due to the similarity of advertising in social media reels/videos and TV ads, the rules for TV ads should apply for reels, too. The court noted that this understanding is still accurate even if users are able to pause reels. Afterall, modern TVs also support a pause feature. The common practice of viewing reels incompletely (swiping away) does also not exempt advertisers from the obligation either, as this appears similar to TV channel surfing, according to the Cologne court.

3. Influencers’ fame can disqualify them from pharmaceutical advertising but how do you determine their degree of fame?

The Cologne court ruling also reinforced the restrictions under the HWG for advertisements with known and/or famous persons. The court explained that such advertising with “known persons” who often have a strong influence on the public can create the risk of consumers resorting to uninformed self-medication or self-diagnosis. The court held that to qualify as a “known person”, an individual does not need to be known to the broader public.

As influencers often cultivate familiarity and trust amongst their followers, they can qualify as “known persons” even if they do not have universal celebrity status. However, the mere follower count of an influencer is not decisive as users could manually “follow” without being subscribed. While the court did not quantify a minimum follower count, it reviewed how popular the specific influencer was across multiple platforms. It considered both the number of followers per platform but also the number of views of individual videos. It concluded that an influencer who has interlinked accounts on Instagram and YouTube with about 150.000 followers each and counts multiple millions of views across platforms qualifies as a “known person” under Section 11 (1) No. 2 HWG.

3. Summary and practical impact for companies

This judgement of the Higher Regional Court of Cologne clarifies several open questions around influencer marketing in Germany. Some of the conclusions from the decision not only apply to pharmaceutical advertising but also to advertising of medical devices. In summary, the key conclusions and practical implications from this Cologne court judgment are:

• First, a key legal conclusion is that paid influencers can qualify as agents of the company and, as result, the company can be held liable for the influencer’s advertising conduct. In the future, it will be more important for companies to review advertising by their paid influencers as rigorously as they do with their own material. Exercising appropriate oversight will be another practical requirement.

• Second, the strict rules for pharmaceutical TV ads also apply to drug advertising using social media reels, videos and similar short-form footage. Accordingly, such pharmaceutical advertising in short-form on social media has to comply with the formal and substantive restrictions that apply to TV and radio advertising. This includes the addition of format-adequate mandatory disclosures.

• Third, influencers can regularly qualify as “famous/known persons” so that the restrictions under German law for drug advertising with known/famous persons can apply. The decision whether the influencer really qualifies as a famous or known person requires a case-by-case assessment that may not be limited to only one social media platform. Advertising pharmaceuticals through such famous/known influencers will be more difficult.

We expect that other German courts will follow this decision so that the guardrails established by the Higher Regional Court of Cologne should be considered by companies when working with influencers. Not all of the above restrictions of pharmaceutical advertising apply to medical devices or other healthcare products so that companies need to assess to which extent their activities fall under these new legal guardrails.

Therefore, it will be interesting to see how companies and influencers react to the new German case-law. As such, companies may consider using influencers more often for non-product related marketing activities (disease awareness campaigns, image/institutional advertising). Other ideas emerging in the market explore advertising with “digital avatars” for which there is no established case law yet.

Overall, Germany remains a very litigious jurisdiction for pharmaceutical and medical devices advertising cases. The body of litigation in these areas is constantly growing. At the same time, we expect that life sciences companies will continue to develop creative advertising concepts in the future.

The Life Sciences Team of Covington & Burling LLP in Frankfurt (Germany) will keep you posted about the next developments and stands ready should you have questions on the impact of the ruling for your advertising activities.

Please also mark your calendar for our next webinar with a “Germany Life Sciences Update –Spotlight: Pharmaceutical Advertising” on 26 February 2026. Save the date and sign up here.

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