The Turkish Medicines and Medical Devices Agency ("Agency") published1 the Guidelines on Electronic Scientific and Product Promotion Meetings ("Guidelines") on March 14, 2021. The Guidelines' basis regulation is Article 7 and 11 of Regulation on Promotional Activities of Medicinal Products for Human Use, which regulates the general scope and main principles pertaining to scientific and product promotion meetings. The Guidelines, having been published at a time where electronic meetings and events have become a necessity due to COVID-19, aims to provide the rules and principles to be taken into account for applications of electronic scientific and product promotion meetings to the Agency.

The Guidelines define electronic scientific meetings as closed (not available to public) meetings, assemblies, seminars, courses, symposiums or workshops that are organized to provide information on a specific scientific topic by the Ministry of Health, healthcare professionals associations, medical establishments, universities or other professional associations of dentists and pharmacists. The definition is in parallel with the definition of scientific meetings under the Regulation on Promotional Activities of Medicinal Products for Human Use. However, the Guidelines indicate that electronic scientific meetings can only be attended during the meeting days through each attendee's username and password.

Below are a few highlight rules and principles from the Guidelines on electronic scientific and product promotion meetings.

Electronic Scientific Meetings

  • License holders can sponsor one healthcare personnel to attend scientific meetings twice a year, and the healthcare personnel can only be sponsored for a maximum amount of four scientific meetings, with the exception of scientific meetings where the healthcare personnel is attending as a speaker or a researcher. License holders cannot directly sponsor the healthcare personnel, but can sponsor through the organization that is organizing the electronic scientific meeting.
  • License holders must apply to the Agency for sponsoring of electronic scientific meetings (for national meetings, 15 business days prior to the meeting and for international meetings, 30 days prior to the meeting) by providing the contents of the meeting, attendee list, expense list and activities to take place, which will be electronically responded by the Agency in 10 business days. If the Agency does not respond, permission for sponsorship will be deemed granted.
  • License holders must also inform the Agency in detail, in 10 days after the electronic scientific meeting is held, regarding the contents of the meeting, attendee list, expense list and activities taken place.
  • License holders can only sponsor national electronic scientific event that will be completed within four hours, in a single day. Electronic scientific meetings that are outside this scope can be sponsored by at least two license holders.
  • Sponsorships can be provided limited to covering the payments for (i) general meeting sponsorship fee, (ii) attendee registration fee, (iii) satellite symposium fee, (iv) satellite symposium speaker fee, and/or (v) stand participation fee. Sponsorships cannot be made through sponsorships such as session, panel, SMS, e-poster space, mobile application, social program sponsorships.
  • License holders cannot organize electronic scientific meetings. Further, license holders cannot (i) directly or indirectly sponsor electronic meetings held on social media platforms or other publicly available media and communication platform, (ii) invitations of electronic scientific meetings cannot include or mention logos or products of license holders, and (iii) electronic scientific meetings cannot be announced on or give invitations through the license holders' social media accounts.

Electronic Product Promotion Meetings

  • Electronic product promotion meetings organized by license holders can only receive scientific support from medical academic personnel or medical establishments and cannot be held by using technical infrastructure systems of medical establishments, or published or archived on their websites.
  • Electronic product promotion meetings organized by license holders, can only finance transportation and accommodation costs of the speakers.
  • License holders can only organize electronic product promotion meetings and cannot organize meetings under different names such as in exchange for donations, or in collaboration with associations or other institutions. In line with this, electronic product promotion meetings can only provide information on the product of the license holder (who organized the meeting) and cannot provide any other information such as statistical information, articles or legal rights.

In addition to the foregoing, the Guidelines provide detailed explanations and rules pertaining to the applications, cancellations, changes to location, date and time to be made with regard to electronic scientific and product promotion meetings.

Footnote

1. Please see https://titck.gov.tr/storage/Archive/2021/announcement/EBLMSELVERNTANITIMTOPLANTIKILAVUZU12.03.2021_9580ee92-69b7-44fe-9121-99f1b832f50a.pdf for the full text of the Guidelines in Turkish (last access: May 10, 2021)

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