<Trade Modernization Committee>
About activity of the Trade Modernization Committee
The Trade Modernization Committee (hereinafter referred to as TMC) performs popularization, education and other activities to promote fair and orderly business of the JIRA member companies. At the same time, TMC is JIRA Branch of Fair Trade Council (FTC) of Medical Devices, and is responsible for compliance with and popularization of FTC’s rules/standards.
1. Organization and Role
TMC is a committee directly connected to JIRA Board of Directors. JIRA member companies are committee members. They discuss various information and issues about business of medical devices and commercial distribution. They unify opinion as JIRA. They open committee meetings/workshops, and perform activities at academic associations etc.
TMC’s role in JIRA is to encourage the member companies to do fair and orderly business. For that purpose, TMC encourages them to comply with "The Code of Ethics", "Declaration of Compliance ", "The Promotion Code of the Medical Devices Industry", and "The Fair Competition Code of the Medical Devices Industry in Japan". In addition, TMC cooperates with JIRA Branch of FTC to investigate and solve various issues, and informs the result of investigation to all the member companies.
2. FY 2011 Interim Report of TMC Action Policy (Establishment of Good Trade Practice of Medical Devices Industry)
(1) Popularization outside TMC
- At the academic societies with which JIRA has a relation, TMC performs activities based on the action policy, and popularizes the fair competition rule.
At the International Technical Exhibition of Medical Imaging 2011, the initial plan was to popularize the fair competition code and to exhibit the panel calling for participation in FTC. But, the Exhibition was cancelled because of the Great East Japan Earthquake. In addition, at the three academic meetings (The 39th Japanese Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, The 51st Annual Scientific Meeting of Japanese Society of Nuclear Medicine, and The 31st Japanese Society of Radiological Technology Autumn Scientific Convention), TMC exhibited the panel calling for participation in TMC and FTC JIRA Branch activities to establish good trade practice and to popularize the fair competition code.
- TMC opens the instructor training course in Kansai for the member companies.
- TMC produces a brochure and a guide of "the rule for quoting the information of the other companies (tentative)" based on the third TMC workshop discussion, and distributes them to the companies who join TMC.
(2) About committee activity
To encourage the member firms to do fair and orderly business, TMC performs popularization activity to encourage them to comply with "The code of Ethics", "Declaration of Compliance " and "The Promotion Code of the Medical Devices Industry. In addition, TMC opened workshop, etc. TMC investigates to find the policy about various issues encountered by the member companies in their business.
Specific measures
- To dispatch committee members to FTC Committees and to JFMDA Business Ethics Committee.
- To open TMC meetings in order to grasp the current situation and to solve problems of the medical device industry.
- To respond to specific inquiries and applications etc. received from the member companies, and to propose solutions.
- To open the fourth workshop for the laws (Anti-Monopoly Law, Law for Preventing Unjustifiable Lagniappes and Misleading Representation, etc.) related to business of the member firms, and to visit the facilities.
- To open the workshop based on FTC “Training Guideline (tentative)” , for the member companies.
- To open workshop to popularize “The Fair Competition Code” (Tokyo, Osaka).
- To dispatch the committee members to Compliance Committee and to cooperate with them.
3. Partial Introduction of Committee Agenda for this FY
In March 2011, Japan Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association published "The transparency guideline of the relation between corporate activity and medical institutions etc." This was taken up by mass media. FTC began to review of the former rule at the same time.
The guideline strongly demands transparency of relation between pharmaceutical manufacturers and medical institutions, etc. It clarifies how and when the guideline will be implemented.
In response to this guideline, JFMDA intends to ensure transparency in the same way.
TMC dispatches the committee members to JFMDA and FTC.
In this FY, TMC is performing investigation based on the reports from these dispatched members.
FTC is reviewing the issue related directly to business activity. The review concerns restriction of entertainment (restriction of dining/amusement) and re-defines the former "social courtesy", "entertainment", and "hospitality." The new rule prohibits excessive entertainment and lists allowable examples for readers to judge quickly. For example, the list indicates the allowable range of entertainment in terms of the upper limit of expenses.
Medical professionals should be given information about appropriate use of devices. In this context, the new rule is under study about provision of training and about small novelties handed out at the exhibition sites, etc.
In response to these pieces of information, TMC is exchanging opinion and studying the issues at the monthly meetings to create the rule reasonable for JIRA member firms.
Soon, the guideline will be released to FTC members.
Until that time, TMC is working to get information as detailed as possible, and studying the contents of information for better understanding so that this issue may be handled easily by TMC member firms.
As mentioned above, this activity is to offer information for the member firms to do business based on fair competition. It is TMC’s main activity.
You are kindly requested to support TMC.
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