SARDINIA, CHANGES AND ADDITIONS ON THE MEDICAL-SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION ACTIVITY

Clearly defined limits on the number of free samples and gifts to be delivered to the doctor, the obligation to present the card at each visit and appointments to be scheduled preferably at different times from those in which patients are visited, when you are in a contracted doctor's office . These are some of the new rules on medical-scientific information contained in a resolution of the Region of Sardinia.

"Pharmaceutical companies that intend to carry out scientific information activities on drugs - reads the provision, entitled "Guidelines and directives on medical-scientific information activities on drugs" - communicate to it for each drug scientific representative (Isf)" all personal and professional data. The Isfs must have an identification card, authenticated by the Region on the basis of the lists it receives from the companies. According to the provision, "the ISF cannot carry out any commercial activity in pharmacies", nor "ask the doctor or pharmacist for information on the prescribing habits of doctors". The companies, for their part, must communicate by 31 January and 31 July of each year the average monthly number of meetings held by the Isfs in the previous semester and the number of doctors and pharmacists" subject to visits by the informant always in the previous semester. Samples of drugs can be delivered to doctors authorized to prescribe the product in question "within the limit of 2 y visit for each dosage or pharmaceutical form of a medicinal product, exclusively in the 18 months following the first marketing of the product and within the maximum limit of 8 samples per year for each dosage and form". For drugs on the market for more than 18 months, "the Isf can deliver to the doctor no more than 4 total samples per visit, within the maximum limit of 10 samples per year". The free delivery of samples is in any case "subject to the written request of the doctor". benefits, pecuniary or in kind, unless they are of negligible value (no more than 20 euros per year for each doctor) and can be connected to the activity of the doctor or pharmacist". Finally, a continuous monitoring table is set up in Sardinia to check the application of the new rules, which will be attended by representatives of the Region, healthcare companies, doctors, industry and the Isf.

1) Resolution GR n.37/34 of 07.30.2009

2) Annex to the Resolution GR no. 37/34 of 07.30.2009

Source: http://www.regione.sardegna.it/