“The regulation on online academic conferences, if amended, falls under the Fair Competition Code of the Korea Fair Trade Commission.

Therefore, to systemize this, changes should be made to the Fair Competition Code.

We discussed this while meeting with the FTC to temporarily extend the allowance of online academic conferences.

The FTC’s position is that the current form of online academic conferences is not fit for temporary extensions and would need to be institutionalized in the future.

Lifting the temporary period limitation can be done by revising the Fair Competition Code.

Of course, this discussion would be made next year (after the temporary extension ends), but the direction that they will take is to institutionalize online academic conferences through code revision.

▶The training education by individual medical institutions that were allowed for the past one year is now impermissible.

Why has this changed? “This is an exception made from the previously allowed acts against the Fair Competition Code.

It is MOHW’s role to compromise the opinions between the industry and the medical community.

As the online training was exceptionally allowed due to the nation’s social distancing measures, the MOHW worked to coordinate and combine the opinions and derive a compromised option.

The “no expense support for long-term care institution-level academic conferences” was not decided by MOHW.

The decision reflects the opinion of member companies of industry associations such as the Korea Pharmaceutical and Bio-Pharma Manufacturers Association, the Korea Medical Devices Industry Association, and the Korea Research-based Pharma Industry Association.

They say that online events are less effective in terms of advertisement than face-to-face events.

There are grounds for allowing events at the long-term care institution level regardless of size.

This means that the member companies regarded this burdensome with little advertisement effect.

Some may ask whether we disallowed it against evidence, but in the relationship aspect, its allowance would have tilted the scale to one side.

This was why we decided to reflect industry opinions.” ▶What plans do you have in place for regulating “digital marketing," the online product briefing sessions? “Under the current law, holding an online product briefing session in itself is allowed, but the company may not provide economic benefits to medical professionals attending the event.

Some in the pharmaceutical industry believe this should be deregulated somewhat.

However, others in the industry have pointed out that if this is allowed, it may become means to provide detour rebates online.

We have listened to the industry’s opinion on this recently, but the discussion is still ongoing as a consensus has not been made yet.

In conclusion, it is illegal to hold an online product briefing session and provide economic benefits to attending medical personnel under the current law.

We are currently discussing the need to improve the system." ▶Then as the discussions are still ongoing, don’t you think you should inform the companies that are currently providing such benefits of the possibility of punishment to clarify the signal?

“We need to first understand the current situation rather than press charges or requesting investigations.

We need to see which companies are providing benefits.

It means that we should meet with the companies and listen to their story rather than press charges right away.” ▶The pharmaceutical industry would want the government to clarify and organize the situation in advance before cracking down on the industry as it had done in the past for offline rebates. "We will not be requesting prosecutions immediately.

It is realistically impossible for MOHW to find all companies and file charges.

We should first provide guidance or advance notice.”