Meals

The Finnish Medicines Act (395/1987) and Medicines Degree (693/1987), available in Finnish and Swedish at www.finlex.fi

Code of Ethics issued by Pharma Industry Finland (PIF)

Finnish Medicines Agency FIMEA

The Finnish Medicines Act or Degree

Hospitality at purely professional or scientific events must always be moderate and remain secondary in relation to the main scientific purpose of the event.

Code of Ethics issued by Pharma Industry Finland

The event must be organised in a venue that is purposeful in view of the programme. No event may be organised in locations that are renowned for their entertainment offer or luxury. The event can be organised abroad if there is a valid scientific or training-related justification to do so.

See Event location.

The Finnish Medicines Act or Degree

Hospitality at purely professional or scientific events must always be moderate and remain secondary in relation to the main scientific purpose of the event.

Code of Ethics issued by Pharma Industry Finland

The hospitality must be reasonable, suitable to the situation as well as secondary to the purpose of the event and not extend any further than what the typical guest to the event would be prepared to pay for a corresponding event.

The Finnish Medicines Act or Degree 

No specific rules 

Code of Ethics issued by Pharma Industry Finland 

No specific rules 

See the general principles on hospitality in Accommodation.

The Finnish Medicines Act or Degree 

No specific rules 

Code of Ethics issued by Pharma Industry Finland 

No specific rules 

The substantial part of the expenses incurred for the events must be related to the scientific programme or training.

The event itself and the travels must be organised so that, excluding the travelling days, most of the time spent by the participants involves a scientific programme or training.

The hospitality must not extend any further than what the typical guest to the event would be prepared to pay for a corresponding event.

The Finnish Medicines Act or Degree:

Hospitality at purely professional or scientific events must not be extended to other than health care professionals.

Code of Ethics issued by Pharma Industry Finland:

In events for the marketing of prescription-only medicines, the hospitality must not be extended to persons other than healthcare professionals.

The hospitality provided in various events must be limited to the persons who personally meet the criteria of event participants, with the exception of the necessary assistants required by the person’s state of health.

The Code applies to information distributed both on a personal basis and through the communication media. Therefore, the scope of application of the PIF Code also includes any operations taking place on the Internet, social media and other electronic communications media.

Additional rules applicable specifically to online conferences (incl. communication / advertising rules in relation to events attended by multinational audience)

The Finnish Medicines Act or Degree 

No specific rules 

Code of Ethics issued by Pharma Industry Finland 

No specific rules 

See the general principles on hospitality in Accommodation.

The Finnish Medicines Act or Degree:

In the case of sales promotion events, hospitality must be moderate and secondary in relation to the purpose of the event, and it must not extend beyond health care personnel.

Code of Ethics issued by Pharma Industry Finland:

There are guidelines for good medical sales representation practice:

• Hospitality or other benefits offered must not jeopardise the public trust in the authorities, civil servants, or employees of public corporations.
• The events and the hospitality offered must comply with the general guidelines concerning the receiving of hospitality by civil servants as well as with the present Code.

For medical devices the relevant statutory law is the Medical Devices Act 719/2021.

Industry code is the MedTech Finland Ethical Code.

The Medical Devices Act does not include any specific rules on hospitality offered to HCPs.

The MedTech Finland Ethical Code is fully aligned with the MedTech Europe’s Ethical Code, except with two exceptions: 1) It is not accepted to serve any kind of alcohol in booths etc. in normal working hours in Finland. 2) Winter season ends 30.4. in Finland.