Significant proposed changes to pharmaceutical advertising are included in the 'health pack' currently being considered in Parliament.

Characteristics of medicinal products

Making the characteristics of medicinal products available will no longer be expressly excluded from the scope of advertising, as the exemption is not provided for under EU law. This may lead to a large number of administrative decisions prohibiting the publication of medicinal product characteristics on, for instance, corporate websites, if used for marketing purposes.

Competitions for doctors and pharmaceutical professionals

The changes will expressly permit promotions addressed at professionals, including competitions, prize draws and other activities whose outcomes depend on chance. This may lead to competitions involving prizes other than ordinary gadgets. Currently, the only competitions permitted by the Chief Pharmaceutical Inspector are those with prizes consisting of ordinary gadgets relating to medical or pharmaceutical practice with a value of no more than PLN 100.

Threatening advertisements

The new provisions will prohibit advertisements using inappropriate, threatening or misleading statements about therapeutic recommendations, although it is unclear what this adds to the current prohibition of misleading advertising (given the many wide-ranging decisions on this subject by the Chief Pharmaceutical Inspector).

Vaccinations

There is a change to the exclusion of protective vaccinations from the ban on advertising, although the drafting does not make it clear whether public promotions of Rx medicinal products that are vaccinations will be permissible (although it should be noted that the Chief Pharmaceutical Inspector did indicate in one of his decisions that it was).

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The original publication date for this article was 29/10/2010.