TGA update - 20 February 2020

The Therapeutic Goods Advertising Consultative Committee (TGACC) met on 20 February 2020 in Sydney. Two important developments from that meeting are outlined below.

1. New draft guidance on social media advertising:

TGA is seeking comments from peak stakeholder bodies, including the MTAA, on a new draft guidance on social medial advertising. On 21 February 2020 MTAA forwarded the draft guidance to the MTAA Advertising Working Group, which is comprised of 28 industry representatives from 15 MTAA members. 3 March 2020 is the deadline for comments. MTAA will collate and consolidate the feedback before forwarding it to the TGA.

The draft guidance covers:

  • activities in the social media space that are likely to be captured by the legislative definition of ‘advertise’
  • the type of activities which may fall foul of the law and why
  • the steps that advertisers can take to correct likely contraventions
  • prevention of non-compliance.

While comments on any aspects of the draft guidance are welcome, TGA is seeking feedback in particular on the following items:

  1. use of mandatory statements
  2. short form ads
  3. prominent displayed or communicated
  4. hashtags and hashtags stacking
  5. third party comments on your social media account

2. Independent review of the reforms to the therapeutic goods advertising framework

In February 2018, the Hon Greg Hunt, Minister for Health, committed to a review of the impact of any new advertising measures within two years from the commencement of the Therapeutic Goods Amendment (2017 Measures No. 1) Act 2018. This independent review has now commenced and it is led by Ms Rosemary Sinclair AM. For terms of reference and other details please refer to the TGA website.

MTAA members will have the opportunity to share their views about any matters within the terms of reference to the Review via the MTAA. TGA will circulate shortly details of proposed sector-specific workshops to be held between member organisations and Ms Sinclair.