Advertising of medicinal products before a financing decision by the National Health System

This judgment is in line with the position upheld in the European Union, where Directive 2001/83/EC on marketing of medicinal products for human use only establishes the limit for marketing authorisation to be able to advertise medicinal products.

This interpretation goes beyond the position of the marketing requirement that, moreover, is not supported by Spanish or autonomous community regulations, which only require medicinal products to have marketing authorisation regardless of whether other administrative formalities need to be completed later. Nor can it be extended to actually marketing the product and then communicating it to the administration.

Having health care workers be familiar with the medicinal product is in the interest of patients, who will receive prescriptions and dispensation of the product more quickly, because it is already known.