Advertising of prescription drugs: when you can’t have everything and even more

Abstract

Advertising of prescription drugs is regulated by general and special provisions of the Federal Law No. 38-FZ “On Advertising” dated March 13, 2006. However, the procedure for application of the relevant rules is disclosed in law enforcement practice: decisions of the antimonopoly authority and courts.Law enforcement practices for advertising of prescription drugs contain a separate layer of regulatory interpretations and require special analysis and evaluation when strategically planning and strategizing to promote such drugs.In practice, one can find answers to a number of complex and ambiguous questions. These questions include the formation of fair marketing policies of pharmacies in relation to the circulation of prescription drugs; limitations that may be applicable to scientific and practical articles reporting information about diseases and existing drug options; creation and content of websites that may contain information related to the description of prescription drug properties; procedure for comparing prescription drugs with each other according to the mechanism of action and other criteria; use of certain words and expressions in advertising materials that are distributed at professional medical events and published in specialized printed publications. In addition, the analysis of solutions from law enforcement practice reveals approaches to assessing the reliability of information contained in advertisements, as well as methods to identify relevant violations of the law and the procedure for assessing evidence by the enforcer.All these issues are covered in detail in this article based on an analysis of case proceedings regarding the unfair advertising of prescription drugs. The article provides the most complete set of solutions that are important from the point of view of practitioners.