Can a pharmaceutical company run a non-promotional medical educational meeting that mentions the company’s medicine?

The definition of promotion in the ABPI Code is broad and, as such, if a company organised meeting discusses the company’s medicine (directly or indirectly), it would likely be seen as promotional, given the company’s commercial interest. As such, the requirements for promotional materials/activities would need to be fulfilled – including certification of material, prescribing information and other obligatory information, no off-label information, etc.

Promotional meetings must also have clear educational content and all information must be fair and balanced.

It is an established principle under the Code that a medicine can be promoted without its name being mentioned. Whether a reference to, for example, class of medicine or mechanism of action amounts to a reference to a specific medicine should be decided on a case-by-case basis: context is important. There may be other product features, such as method of administration, that could indirectly identify a specific medicine depending on the current treatment landscape for that condition.