News and developments
A Practical Checklist of Things to Avoid with New Launches of Prescription-Only Medicines in Singapore
As you can see from my earlier article (https://www.linkedin.com/posts/joyce-a-tan-%26-partners_earned-media-legitimate-publicity-or-product-activity-7213730770949980160-16Gr?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop ), product promotion and advertisement of therapeutic product is regulated in Singapore and you should familiarize yourself with the key issues in doing so especially for new product launches. Here’s a brief write up on this – plus a checklist that might be essential whenever formulating plans and strategies around such product launches.
Our checklist is below. These are some of the questions that a pharmaceutical company should consider and helpful information to navigate the regulatory requirements. However, it is important to note that the reference to product in this article only relates to prescription only medicines. Different requirements may apply to other classification of health products.
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- Can I conduct pricing market research for new products which are still pending HSA approval and if so, is it compliant for my company to disclose the product name to the market research agency?
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- Are there any considerations in my engagement with healthcare professionals in the days leading to my product launch?
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- Can my company create any social media posts referring to the launch of the new product?
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- If so, are there any concerns if my employees interact with the posts?
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- If my company wish to create disease awareness campaigns or posts to create more awareness of the disease that is the subject ofthe new product, are there any time considerations prior to or post the launch that I should consider before creating the disease awareness campaign?
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- If my company were to support patient support program by assisting to bringing in the product early for early access treatment by certain patients, are there any considerations that I need to bear in mind in supporting such a request?
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- What happens after the product has been launched? Can the patient support program continue to run? This is especially so as we experience a rise in oncology drugs that are being introduced into Singapore and most of these oncology drugs have already been used in countries outside of Singapore.
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- If I wish to organize a product launch event are there any considerations I need to consider? Can I even organize such an event? What are the special considerations when organizing such product launch event?
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- Are releases to the press regarding information about the product and the product launch ever permissible and if so, how can it be done compliantly?