Advertising complaint - Clinorette & Climanor 28 Tablets, healthcare professional unsolicited samples - April 2008

Four healthcare professionals complained to the MHRA that they had received unsolicited samples of Clinorette and Climanor 28 Tablets with promotional mailings from Resource Medical UK Limited.

The MHRA upheld the complaint and considered the supply of samples to be in breach of Regulation 19 of the Advertising Regulations. Resource Medical UK Limited stopped supplying samples with their mailings, agreed to review their procedures and issued a corrective statement to all recipients of the samples.

Regulation 19 of the Medicines (Advertising) Regulations 1994 provides that a free sample of a medicine may only be supplied to persons qualified to prescribe medicines in response to a written request, signed and dated, from the recipient.

Date case raised: 22 April 2008
Date action agreed: 14 May 2008

Corrective statement

Dear Doctor

Ref: CLINORETTE and CLIMANOR Tablets
Supply of sample

The MHRA have asked us to provide a corrective statement regarding the promotion of our products i.e. Clinorette and Climanor.

These products were sent out to Health professionals as free samples in the post along with introductory letter and product information leaflets. These samples were sent out without health professional’s request and therefore did not comply with regulation 19 of the Medicines (Advertising) Regulations 1994.

We apologise for the inappropriate supply of the samples and any inconvenience it has caused.

In addition if you have any problem in disposing off any remaining samples please contact us and we will make arrangement for this.

Kind Regards
Z.A. Akram
Managing Director
Resource Medical UK Ltd

Tel: 01484 531 489, Fax: 01484 531 584, Email: info@resource-medical.co.uk