If you go "off label" with advertising and promotion, FDA's hammer can
hit hard and seemingly out of the blue. Advertising and promotion for
devices is weak and lacks legal clarity. For drugs, the regulations are
prescriptive and guidance documents clamp down on nuances. Marketing and
regulatory affairs departments must collaborate to avoid the hammer and
penalties of FDA. The roadblock, however is that marketing managers and
regulatory affairs managers rarely reach common ground and are loathe
to even consult with each other.
FDA's Center for Devices and
Radiological Health (CDRH) has never issued a comprehensive guidance on
advertising and promotion. You are on your own. In contrast, FDA's
Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) uses long-standing
regulations and a growing number of guidance documents in its regulatory
approach. Policing social media has become a new regulatory
responsibility and FDA is still trying to figure out how to deal with
it. Bottom line, do you know when you fail to meet FDA's requirements or
are you guessing? Can you afford to guess? The cost to your business
and the confusion left in your customers' mind becomes an unwelcomed
nightmare.
Why you should attend
In this seminar, you will
learn how to navigate FDA's numerous legal options and how to interpret
them based on basic legal principles. Applying new guidance documents
becomes a new test of the FDA's legal boundaries and enforcement
options. The agency is now conducting clinical studies and applies the
principles of cognitive psychology to aid in its determination of what a
message really conveys.
This academic discipline may or may not get to the root of what consumers take away as the message.
Congress
and the new FDA Commissioner seem more sympathetic to expanding access
to medical treatment before all the conclusive evidence for safety and
effectiveness is evaluated by the FDA. Valid off-label information may
take the lead in that direction.
This conference will provide
insight on how to manage your marketing activity and gauge what
regulatory risks your business is willing to accept. You will learn how
corporate management requires cooperation between marketing, regulatory
affairs, legal counsel, manufacturing, engineering and finance
departments. Operating in a stovepipe environment will not work.
You
need to understand that a weak link in any department leaves the entire
corporation vulnerable to FDA enforcement. Most importantly, you will
understand the boundaries that FDA uses and how easy it is to cross
them. With information from this course, you can step back and
rationally evaluate your firm's regulatory profile for advertising and
promotion practices.
Learning Objective:
- Learn how FDA faces constitutional constraints on enforcement decisions
- Learn
about intersecting federal requirements by the Department of Justice,
the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission and
the Consumer Product Safety Commission
- Learn how the FDA interprets advertising and promotion in principle and in fact
- Understand ways that a firm violates FDA requirements
- Evaluate advertising and promotional material based on interactive group hypotheticals
- See how sales and marketing departments play a central role, for better or worse
- Learn how the federal government holds executive management responsible for missteps in promotion and advertising practices
Who Will Benefit
- Sales and Marketing executives and managers
- Regulatory Managers
- In-house Legal Counsel and Contract Specialists
- 3rd party consultants
- Venture Capitalists
- Investors
- Business Acquisition Executives
- Owners of New or Developing Firms
- Own label distributors
- International Trade Managers
- Product specification developers
Casper (Cap) Uldriks, through
his firm “Encore Insight LLC,” brings over 32 years of experience from
the FDA. He specialized in the FDA’s medical device program as a field
investigator, served as a senior manager in the Office of Compliance and
an Associate Center Director for the Center for Devices and
Radiological Health. He developed enforcement actions and participated
in the implementation of new statutory requirements. His comments are
candid, straightforward and of practical value. He understands how FDA
thinks, how it operates and where it is headed. Based on his
exceptionally broad experience and knowledge, he can synthesize FDA’s
domestic and international operational programs, institutional policy
and thicket of legal variables into a coherent picture. Professional
credentials: JD – Suffolk University, licensed in Massachusetts and the
District of Columbia; M.Div in psychology – Boston University with
internship through Harvard University.
Lecture 1: FDA legal authority- FDA application of the FD&C Act and implementing regulations
- FTC / mass media
- SEC/False statements
- DOJ / False Claims
- Enforcement authority and options
Lecture 2: Promotion and Advertising: scope of labeling- Definitions for "label" and "labeling"
- Hard copy and electronic
- Testimonials
- Blogs
- Sales force
- What is "off-label?"
- Practice of Medicine exemption
- Drugs authority
- Devices
- Dietary supplements
Lecture 3: Supreme Court / commercial free speech- Constitutional protection and case law
- Amarin Case: off-label, but true
- Safe harbor
- Policy
- FDA organizational responsibility
- FDA Guidance
- Fair and balanced disclosure
- Social media
- Direct to Consumer Advertising
Lecture 4:- Direct to consumer advertising vectors
- Federal Trade Commission interest (economic vs. safety)
- Context and format of messaging
- Script versus message
- Target population
- Aspirations
- Emotional factors
Lecture 5: False and misleading information- Statutory basis (21 U.S.C. 352(a))
- New use
- Comparative claims
- Claims for safety and effectiveness
- Sales for solicitation
Lecture 6:- Off label use - practices and policy
- FDA Warning Letters
Lecture 7:- Practice of medicine exemption
- Custom Device promotion
- (Group Hypothetical)
- Corporate management responsibility