Turkish Medicine and Medical Devices Office (“TITCK”) has updated Guideline regarding Scientific Meetings and Educational Activities within the scope of the Regulation on the Sale, Advertising and Promotion of Medical Devices (“Guideline”) on 27 April 2020 and introduced some provisions regarding web-based meetings.
The Guideline regulates the procedures and principles to be applied by medical device sales centers in accordance with the article titled “Scientific meetings and educational activities” of the Sale, Advertising and Promotion of Medical Devices in Turkey.
According to the Guideline; the applications must be made on the electronic platform of the TITCK at least 15 days before the scientific meetings and the educational activities. Electronic notification must include the content of the meeting, a list of the potential participants, cost items, and any other information relating to the meeting.
If the participants are involved in the meetings and activities as a speaker or a researcher, the Letter of Acceptance (Invitation Letter) issued by the organization on behalf of the related participant should also be attached to the electronic notification.
TITCK will evaluate the electronic notifications and announce the results within 10 business days following the date of the notification. 5 extra business days will be given to applicants with missing documents or information to compensate.
Post-meeting, sales centers are obliged to notify the TITCK about the list of the participants, cost items, and completed activities within the following month.
TITCK also introduced some provisions regarding web-based meetings, deciding that there would be no notification for web-based meetings without technical equipment and support (i.e. any device, apparatus, software) and/or value transfer.
However, if these supports are provided, notifications should be made in accordance with the procedures and principles stated in the guideline on scientific meetings and educational activities.
For the web-based meetings in order to give scientific information to the healthcare professionals and medical device technicians which are exceeding one day organized by the Ministry, National and International Specialist Associations, Health Institutions and Organizations, Universities, medical doctor/ dentist/ pharmacist professional organizations or medical device sales centers, the type of the meeting should be chosen as a scientific meeting in the application.
The web-based meetings which will take a maximum of one day regarding the medical device promotion and training organized by medical device sales centers should be labeled as an educational activity in the application.
While web-based meetings labeled as scientific meetings have a limit on the number of participants to meetings, the ones labeled as educational activities have no limit on the number of participants.
The full text of the Guideline updated on 27 April 2020 is available at this link (only available in Turkish.)
