Compliance

According to the European Legislation (Directive 2001/83/CE), EFPIA Code (European Federation of Pharmaceuticals Industries & Associations), Farmaindustria Code (Spanish Code of Practice for the Pharmaceutical Industry), and EUCOMED Code of Practice the promotion of prescription-only medicines should be limited to those HCPs able to prescribe or dispense medicines.

The organiser of the 12th Congress of ECCO has done its utmost best to comply with the prevalten legislation and to keep all stakeholders participating at the Congress informed about the relevant regulations. ECCO has adopted several measures that allow compliance with applicable regulations:

  • Exhibitors have been asked to respect the Code of Practice in the context of the ECCO'17 Exhibitor and Sponsor Prospectus.
  • Exhibitors have been alerted to the regulations about the promotion of prescription-only medicine, explaining that non-prescribing congress delegates can be identified with the NP sign on the congress badge.
  • In the course of the online and onsite registration, the congress delegates will also be informed about the regulations regarding publicity and promotion of medicine and are asked to indicate their prescriber/non-prescriber status accordingly.
  • At all entrances to the exhibition area delegates will be informed via a sign about the restriction of promoting prescription medicine.

Transparency & Disclosure Policy

ECCO has diligently maintained a disclosure policy of potential conflicts of interests (CoI) and its aim is to foster transparency and to ensure scientific rigour and objectivity in all of its scientific and educational activities. Therefore, all presenters, including invited faculty members and abstract presenters, are required to disclose any relevant financial support or relationship that may lead to a potential conflict. Please note that the responsibility for the content of each presentation lies with the presenting author.

All presenters are required to complete a Conflict of Interest form to disclose any financial support as well as advisory and consultancy roles in the biomedical industry. All submitted forms are open to public scrutiny on the ECCO website providing a comprehensive overview of potential conflicts of interest of presenters. As soon as the CoI Forms are online, the IBD Community is also notified by the eNewsletter about the online access to the up-to-date disclosure information. In addition, these conflicts are requested to be shown at the beginning of each presentation on a PowerPoint slide.

In order to facilitate the process and reinforce the 2nd slide policy, faculty speakers are reminded to disclose their potential conflicts of interest in their ppt in line with UEMS regulations.

Based on the submitted CoI form of each speaker, a draft CoI slide has been prepared and is made available in the Speakers’ centre with a reminder that if the respective presentation does not yet include a disclosure form, the slide draft should be checked/ amended and included in the ppt.

Conflicts of interest may include financial relationships or when the individual has the opportunity to influence the content of a presentation, and can comprise grants, honoraria, shares, paid positions on advisory boards etc. ECCO expects many presenters to have some conflicts of interest, which do not prevent them from presenting their work given that the conflict is disclosed.