Can a pharmaceutical company put an interactive programme on an exhibition stand that requires an attendee to make a series of judgements and choices regarding a treatment pathway? When would such a programme become a quiz, if it was not one already?

  • 18.1

    18.1 No gift, pecuniary advantage or benefit may be supplied, offered or promised to members of the health professions or to other relevant decision makers in connection with the promotion of medicines or as an inducement to prescribe, supply, administer, recommend, buy or sell any medicine, subject to the provisions of Clauses 18.2 and 18.3.

Although such a programme may be regarded as simply educational material, depending on its content it could also be considered to be a quiz and thus subject to the requirements relating to quizzes in the supplementary information to Clause 18.1. Any assessment or evaluation of the delegates' decisions may mean that the interactive programme is a quiz.

A quiz would be acceptable if it related to the subject matter of the meeting and formed part of the meeting's formal proceedings. Exhibition stands are not considered to be a formal part of a meeting's proceedings.