Commissioning video for a pharma audience in Ireland sits in a different category to almost any other corporate brief. Every line of voiceover, every on-screen super, every B-roll choice has to survive medical, legal and regulatory (MLR) review before it goes anywhere near a healthcare professional or a patient. Get the production process right and review becomes a formality. Get it wrong and you are looking at re-shoots, re-records, and a campaign that misses its launch window.
This guide is written for brand managers, medical affairs leads and communications heads inside pharma and medtech organisations who are briefing pharma video production Ireland projects. It goes beyond the general HPRA overview and walks through the IPHA code, fair balance, adverse event signposting, EU MDR obligations, and the practical production controls that move a draft through MLR on the first pass.
Novartis – Patient impact video
Pharma and medtech communications in Ireland are governed by a layered framework. The Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA) enforces the statutory rules, the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association (IPHA) sets the industry code that members sign up to, and the EU Medical Device Regulation (EU 2017/745, or EU MDR) controls how device claims and indications can be communicated. For HCP-facing content there are additional considerations around promotion of prescription-only medicines; for patient-facing content the rules tighten further.
A production company working on this material has to be fluent in all of it. That fluency shows up in how scripts are drafted, how voiceover is recorded, how on-screen text is timed, and how source files are versioned for audit. An IPHA code compliant video is built, not retrofitted.
If your video touches any of these (and most do), your script, your visuals and your distribution plan all need to be assessed against each lens separately. A piece that is comfortably IPHA-compliant can still trip Article 7 if a B-roll shot implies an off-label use.
Fair balance is the principle that benefit claims and safety information must be presented with comparable prominence. In print this is straightforward: the prescribing information sits in equal weight beside the benefit message. In video it is harder, because timing, pacing, music, and on-screen graphic weight all influence how prominent something feels even when it is technically present.
The strongest pharmaceutical marketing video scripts are written with fair balance baked in from the first draft, not bolted on after legal review. That usually means structuring the script in matched blocks: every benefit beat is paired with the corresponding safety or limitation beat, at the same pace, in the same voice, with comparable visual treatment.
Any promotional video that touches a specific product needs to carry adverse event reporting information. In Ireland that means signposting the HPRA reporting route, and where the marketing authorisation holder operates a pharmacovigilance contact, that detail as well. The most defensible practice is a combined approach: a clear on-screen end card carrying the reporting URL and pharmacovigilance email, supported by a voiceover line acknowledging the obligation.
On-screen treatment matters. The end card should remain on screen for long enough to be transcribed by a viewer, and the text size should pass a basic legibility check at the platform the video will be served on. A super that works on a desktop YouTube embed can be unreadable on a mobile LinkedIn feed, and reviewers will flag that.
Novartis – Consultant video
The distinction between an HCP facing video pharma asset and a patient-facing piece changes almost every production decision. HCP content can reference the product by name, discuss mechanism of action, present clinical trial data, and use technical language. Patient-facing promotional content for prescription-only medicines is far more constrained, and in many cases the appropriate format is disease awareness rather than product promotion.
For medical device manufacturers, EU MDR video content obligations sit alongside the IPHA framework rather than replacing it. Article 7 of EU MDR explicitly prohibits misleading claims about the function, performance, or characteristics of a device, including claims that could create a false impression about therapeutic effect. In a video context that has practical consequences.
Intended purpose, as defined in the technical file, is the boundary line. Any visual or verbal claim that implies a use beyond the registered intended purpose is off-label communication, regardless of intent. That includes B-roll showing the device being used in a clinical setting that is not part of the registered indication, animations that visualise a mechanism beyond what the file supports, and user testimonials that describe outcomes outside the labelled claims.
Mechanism of action animations are one of the most useful tools in pharma and device communication, and one of the most scrutinised. The visual has to be supportable by the underlying science and consistent with the SmPC or IFU. Reviewers will ask, reasonably, whether each frame is defensible.
The production-side discipline is to storyboard the animation against the reference documents before any cel is built. Every visual beat needs a citation in the storyboard. That single habit prevents most of the late-stage rework that drags MOA animations past their deadline.
Most MLR friction is not caused by bad creative. It is caused by poor production hygiene: undocumented script changes, untracked B-roll sources, missing reference citations, voiceover recorded before script lock, on-screen text that drifts from the approved copy. A production company that has worked on regulated content builds the controls in by default.
For brand teams briefing pharma video work, the practical takeaway is this: choose a production partner who can describe their MLR workflow before you sign a contract. If they cannot, the controls do not exist, and you will end up building them yourself under deadline pressure.
IDA – Pharma industry in Ireland video
The cost of choosing a production partner without regulated-content experience is rarely visible in the quote. It shows up in review cycles that take weeks instead of days, in re-records that were avoidable, in launch dates that slip because a super was sized for the wrong platform. By the time those costs are tallied, the cheaper quote has become the more expensive project.
At One Productions we work with pharma, medtech, and private healthcare clients across Ireland and the UK, and the projects that land cleanly through MLR share a pattern. They start with a brief that names the regulatory lens, they involve medical affairs at storyboard rather than at first cut, and they use a production company that treats the code as part of the craft rather than as a constraint on it. For more on the broader healthcare context, our medical and healthcare video production pillar covers patient journey films, hospital brand work, and clinical training video alongside this regulated pharma work.
Any promotional material covered by the IPHA Code, including video, must be certified by an appropriately qualified person within the marketing authorisation holder before use. The IPHA itself does not pre-review individual assets; the obligation sits with the company through its internal MLR or signatory process. Disease awareness, corporate, and internal training videos may be out of scope of the promotional code but still fall under broader HPRA and EU MDR rules.
Yes, with significant care. Informed written consent is essential, the patient must not be making promotional claims about a prescription product to a public audience, and any statement of personal experience needs to be supported by clear language that outcomes vary. For HCP-facing content, real patients can appear in case-study formats provided the content is gated and the indication is on-label.
Expect two to four weeks for first-pass review on a straightforward HCP-facing asset, longer for patient-facing or multi-product campaigns. Build review into the timeline from the brief stage rather than treating it as a final-week formality. Storyboard-level review can compress total review time significantly because visual issues are resolved before they become edit issues.
EU MDR formalised the prohibition on misleading claims, raised the bar for technical documentation supporting marketing claims, and brought a wider range of products into scope. For video, the practical impact is that every claim, visual or verbal, needs to be traceable to the technical file and the registered intended purpose. Mechanism of action animations and user-environment B-roll receive particular scrutiny.
Sometimes, but rarely without changes. Adverse event reporting routes differ, the IPHA code differs in places from the ABPI code, and product indications can vary by market. The safer assumption is that a UK asset is a starting point that needs an Irish review pass, fresh end cards, and potentially a re-record of any references to reporting routes or local resources.
Regulated content rewards production partners who treat the code as a craft discipline rather than a hurdle. If you are planning a HCP-facing campaign, a patient education series, a mechanism of action animation, or a medical device launch film, the earlier a production company is involved in the brief, the cleaner the review process will be.
Got a pharma or medtech video project in the pipeline? Get in touch with One Productions for a conversation about scope, timeline, and how to build MLR-ready production into the plan from day one.
Freddie, One Productions
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