Advertisement is the main way to promote products, including medical devices. However, in Mexico, there are rules for advertising medical devices intended or operated by Healthcare professionals. In this article, we describe the most common types of ads in the medical device industry and how they are regulated in Mexico.
As discussed in our previous article, advertising medical devices in Mexico is an activity regulated by COFEPRIS. In this text we will describe the subtypes of ads intended for Healthcare Professionals requiring advertising notices:
- Catalogues: printed or digital books from a single or various manufacturers. Catalogues are organized to show product pictures, trademarks, dimensions, technology and other general properties. This type of material is intended to inform physicians (and other healthcare professionals) about the existence of the medical device. Because of the descriptions included, most catalogues require an advertising notice to be distributed in Mexico. It is worth mentioning that all the models in the catalogue must have a valid Sanitary Registration (the same is applicable for the rest of cases discussed in this article -meanwhile the product is considered a medical device). Finally, digital and physical catalogues need separated advertising notices.
- Brochures: those tend to be smaller, compared to catalogues, but provide more detailed information about a single medical device.
- Posters: those materials are larger prints of a single device, a family group, or a company. They are common in tradeshows and conventions.
- Multimedia: we can consider in this group: videos, interactive content, online courses, and other media combining audio, video and/or images. In this case, the advertisement notice submission will include only screenshots of all relevant frames of the video and captions of the voices.
- Digital platforms: among the most common cases in this group we can find: official websites, social networks accounts (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.), apps and any other information that can be accessed with a computer or smartphone. Each distribution channel and each campaign must account with its own advertising notice. Because the wide variety of digital platforms, ads are more restricted in regards of what can be advertised. A common practice is to restrict access to content for Healthcare Professionals by setting up separated sections protected by password or any other ways to prevent the general public to see further information of the device.
Conclusions
Regardless of the advertisement characteristics, most of them require advertising notifices to legally distribute the materials and avoid COFEPRIS to issue fines or request to withdraw printed ads or remove the content from digital platforms.
Each advertisement can have unique characteristics that may be complex in regulatory terms. For instance, including catalogs and brochures with devices from different manufacturers, and/or products not yet registered in Mexico. If you need help with properly advertising your medical devices in Mexico, feel free to contact us at contact@veraqueconsulting.com or check our guidelines.
