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Industry-Supported Scientific and Educational Activities: Maintaining Independence from Promotional Influence

This guidance addresses the distinction between industry-supported scientific and educational activities and promotional activities. It provides direction on how companies can support educational activities while maintaining their independence from promotional influence.

  1. Develop clear policies for supporting educational activities that ensure independence from promotional influence
  2. Implement procedures for reviewing and approving educational support requests
  3. Create documentation systems to track educational grants and support
  4. Establish criteria for evaluating educational providers and programs
  5. Train relevant staff on the distinction between promotional and educational activities
  6. Maintain clear separation between marketing/sales departments and educational grant decision-making
  7. Regularly audit educational support activities to ensure compliance with guidance
  8. Document all funding disclosures and agreements with educational providers
  9. Review promotional materials to ensure they don’t inappropriately reference supported educational activities

Key Considerations

Other considerations

  • Industry supporters should have no control over content, speakers, or materials of educational activities
  • There should be full disclosure of industry funding
  • The educational provider should maintain full independence in developing program content
  • Multiple company support is encouraged to minimize individual company influence
  • Industry supporters should not be involved in promoting the educational activity directly to attendees
  • Educational materials should be balanced and scientifically rigorous
  • Venue and circumstances of the educational activity should be appropriate for scientific/educational communication

    Relevant Guidances

  • Maintaining Independence of Industry-Supported Scientific and Educational Activities

No specific norms or ISO standards are referenced in this guidance.


Original guidance

  • Industry-Supported Scientific and Educational Activities: Maintaining Independence from Promotional Influence
  • HTML / PDF
  • Issue date: 1997-12-03
  • Last changed date: 2019-04-17
  • Status: FINAL
  • Official FDA topics: Medical Devices, Advertising, Drugs, Animal & Veterinary, Biologics, Administrative / Procedural
  • ReguVirta summary file ID: 8a1523921f5f14751df1a592b2288ce1
This post is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by the author.