«A cut of which I am proud - comments Sergio Dompé, 52, president of Farmindustria - if, as stated in our code of ethics, it concerns the ludic-recreational part, i.e. business class flights, five-star hotels, gala dinners, locations in tourist resorts, hospitality for companions.
Before the tax crackdown, deductible expenses went as far as 80%. Then there was the collapse from 160 to 42 million.
– In Made in Italy congress tourism, the segment of medical-scientific congresses represents a reality in crisis and has radically changed over the past year: Aifa (Italian Medicines Agency) in 2007 recorded a drop in investments by pharmaceutical companies by 73%, a decrease in conferences by 56% and a contraction in congress expenses from 160 million euros in the first quarter of 2006 to 42 million in the same period of 2007. A suffering sector above all because there has been a lack of funding from pharmaceutical companies, increasingly bound by fiscal restrictions, ethical codes and self-regulation rules which, in fact, have cut off the legs of "easy" sponsorships. Until 2002 it was the "good life" and the sponsorship of congresses represented the first marketing activity of pharmaceutical companies, the expenses were tax deductible under the 80% and the CME (Continuous Education in Medicine) had not yet entered into force, that professional updating system which allows doctors to acquire training credits by participating in updating activities, seminars and meetings of small dimensions, limited duration and at a local level, observes Paolo Zona, national coordinator of the Relations Area with the Institutions of Federcongressi, «now the music has changed, the money to spend is less and less, the expenses are deductible only to the 20% and the room for maneuver is extremely reduced». Not only that, but Farmindustria's deontological code (February 2007) and its new self-regulation on the subject of conferences and congresses (April 2007) drastically reduce the possibility of "rich prizes and cotillions" on the sidelines of scientific congresses, a directive that weighed heavily on the infamous 73% "cut" of investments.
«A cut of which I am proud - comments Sergio Dompé, 52, president of Farmindustria - if, as stated in our code of ethics, it concerns the ludic-recreational part, i.e. business class flights, five-star hotels, gala dinners, locations in tourist resorts, hospitality for companions. We wanted to reduce the funding to the essentials, squeezed between the desire to give signs of sobriety and the continuous reductions in pharmaceutical expenditure which led the sector to have the same turnover in 2007 paid by the State as in 2001, while the rest of health expenditure grew by over 40%".
Here then is that the reality of medical-scientific congresses has taken on a bipolar dimension. On the one hand, the large scientific congresses of specialties resist and thrive, international events of high prestige, which extend over 5-6 days; at the opposite extreme, "mini-congresses" proliferate at the local level (Local health authorities or hospitals), with fewer than 50 participants, which fill up in the course of a day and play the lion's share numerically: 41,000 events out of 66,000 in 2006. "Medium-sized congresses, those with 200-300 participants and lasting two-three days, have in fact disappeared", comments Paolo Zona again. A "disappearance" that does not surprise the president of the Medical Association, Amedeo Bianco, 59 years old: «It is
