December 13, 2019

News about advertising medical devices on Facebook: updates from the Ministry of Health

On October 24, 2019, the Ministry of Health published an addendum to the guidelines on the advertising of medical devices, in vitro diagnostic medical devices and medical-surgical devices (collectively “Medical Devices” or “MD”) on Facebook (the “Guidelines”). The Guidelines essentially reproduce the provisions established by the Ministry of Health on advertising medicines on Facebook.

The Guidelines regulate content on advertising Medical Devices according to two different types of pages on Facebook: (i) company, product or brand pages and (ii) thematic company pages.

Company, product or brand pages are allowed provided that the following conditions are met:

  • the feature regarding the possibility to comment on the post as well as to add reactions shall be disabled;
  • a specific disclaimer shall be used stating that the Ministry of Health exclusively authorizes the advertising content and that any comments are the sole responsibility of the user while the company dissociates itself from the comments made by users;
  • posts with advertising content shall be authorized by the Ministry of Health. Accordingly, such posts shall be deposited, with some exception such as for institutional advertising.

On the other hand, thematic company pages are those pages which have content different from the institution and/or product advertising. These pages are allowed under the following conditions:

  • if they are devoid of advertising content related to MD, no authorization is required;
  • conversely, if these pages contain advertising posts on MD, they shall comply with the same rules provided by the Guidelines for the company, product or brand pages (specifically: authorization from the Ministry of Health, disclaimer and deactivation of interactivity function).

Moreover, the Guidelines clearly illustrate (i) how to create and display posts on FB, by distinguishing between different types of posts, (ii) the possibility for each company to submit an editorial plan for each product to the Ministry of Health, and (iii) how to use Messenger to advertise MD.

< Back to blog
Welcome to the Portolano Cavallo Life Sciences blog focusing on legal development and key legal issues affecting the life sciences and healthcare industry.
...
Read more
Our highly-ranked team of professionals will provide news, insights and multidisciplinary commentary on the hottest and most recent regulatory, transactional and contentious aspects of the pharmaceutical, bio-tech, med-tech, food supplement and healthcare world with an eye on its digital transformation and technological developments.

This blog will be a place for focusing on digital health, telemedicine and artificial intelligence, as well as more traditional topics: from the protection of intellectual properties to performance of clinical trials, from the market access to advertising and competition issues, from internal and criminal investigations to M&A and venture capital transactions.

Close
March 20, 2023
Today, Regulation (EU) 2023/607 extending the transitional provisions for the placing on the market and putting into service of certain medical devices and in vitro diagnostic medical device...
January 31, 2023
Clinical trials: Ministry of Health signed off on decrees that (i) reorganize ethics committees and coordinate their activities, (ii) determine the single tariff for the authorization proced...
December 19, 2022
On 13 December 2022, EMA, European Commission and HMA jointly adopted a recommendation paper on the introduction of decentralised elements in the conduct of Clinical Trials in the EU/EEA
September 21, 2022
Payback for medical devices: Decree quantifying the exceeding of the expenditure ceiling for medical devices at national and regional level for the years 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 published ...
September 1, 2022
The 2021 annual law for market and competition addressing, as to the healthcare sector, reimbursement of drugs, intermediate distribution, patent linkage and institutional accreditation of p...
Search by...
Search
Follow us on
Follow us on