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Chief Pharmaceutical Inspectorate

Medicinal product advertising

Medicinal product advertising means an activity that involves informing about or encouraging to use a medicinal product, aimed at increasing the number of prescriptions given, supply, sales, or consumption of the medicinal product, and may be based on:

  • visiting persons authorised to write prescriptions or persons trading in medicinal products through sales or medical representatives;
  • supplying samples of medicinal products;
  • sponsoring promotional meetings for persons authorised to write prescriptions or persons trading in medicinal products;
  • sponsoring conferences, meetings, and scientific congresses for persons authorised to write prescriptions or persons trading in medicinal products.

Such advertising can be conducted only by the marketing authorisation holder or an entity contracted by the marketing authorisation holder.


Medicinal product advertising can be divided into:

  • advertisement intended for the public;
  • advertisement intended for persons authorised to write prescriptions or persons trading in medicinal products;

Each can be carried out in the following forms:

  • audio-visual;
  • audio;
  • visual.

Medicinal product advertising is regulated by the Pharmaceutical Law Act (Journal of Laws 2019.499, as amended) and the Regulation of the Minister of Health of 21 November 2008 on Advertising Medicinal Products (Journal of Laws 210.1327) and is subject to restrictions specified therein:

  • It must not be misleading; it should present the medicinal product objectively and inform about its rational use;
  • It must not involve offering or promising any benefits, neither indirectly nor directly, in exchange of purchasing the medicinal product or showing evidence of the purchase;
  • It must not be directed to children or contain any element directed to children;
  • A medicinal product must not be presented by any public figures, scientists, persons with medical or pharmaceutical education, or suggesting that they have such education;
  • It must not refer to any recommendations from any public figures, scientists, persons with medical or pharmaceutical education, or suggesting that they have such education;
  • It must not suggest that it is possible to avoid going to a doctor or having a surgery, especially through giving a diagnosis or recommending a treatment by correspondence;
  • It must not suggest that even a healthy person taking the medicinal product can improve their health;
  • It must not suggest that not taking the medicinal product might negatively affect a person’s health; this requirement does not apply to vaccines referred to in Article 57(2);
  • It must not suggest that the medicinal product is a food, cosmetic, or other consumption product;
  • It must not suggest that the efficacy and safety of the medicinal product is based on its natural origin;
  • It must not assure that the use of the medicinal product guarantees the desired effects, that it does not cause any adverse reactions, or that the effects are better or the same as in other treatment methods or other medicinal products;
  • It must not lead to a wrong self-diagnosis by citing detailed cases and symptoms of a disease;
  • It must not refer to the therapeutic indications in an inappropriate, disturbing, or misleading manner;
  • It must not contain inappropriate, disturbing, or misleading expressions, graphically presented disease lesions, human body injuries, or the effects of the medicinal product on the human body or its parts.

A medicinal product advertisement should contain information that is consistent with the Summary of Product Characteristics and the one intended for the public should contain the following warning:
“Before use, read the package leaflet or consult a doctor or a pharmacist, as every medicine may be hazardous to your health and life if used improperly.”

  • A special type of advertising is medicinal product advertising involving the supply of free samples. It can be directed only to persons authorised to write prescriptions, provided that:
    • the person authorised to write prescriptions has given a written request to the sales or medical representative for supplying the medicinal product samples;
    • the person supplying the sample keeps a register of samples supplied;
    • each sample supplied is not larger than one medicinal product package of the smallest size approved for marketing within the Republic of Poland;
    • each sample supplied is marked with the text “free sample – not for sale”;
    • each sample supplied is provided together with the Summary of Product Characteristics for medicinal product or veterinary medicinal product;
    • the number of samples of the same medicinal product supplied to the same person does not exceed five packages per year.
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