New pharmacovigilance legislation comes into operation

Better protection of public health through strengthened EU system for medicines safety

02/07/2012 - The European Medicines Agency (EMA) welcomes the start of new European Union (EU) legislation on pharmacovigilance. This new piece of legislation aims to promote and protect public health by strengthening the existing Europe-wide system for monitoring the safety and benefit-risk balance of medicines.

“The progress made in healthcare would not have been possible without medicines and the research and development community behind them. But we need smart regulation for the system to be able to continue to deliver safe and effective medicines,” said the Agency’s Executive Director, Guido Rasi.

“The new pharmacovigilance legislation will help us to make the system more robust for public health and more transparent. It gives regulators a range of new or improved tools to ensure that patients are not exposed to unnecessary risks when taking medicines. It also increases the efficiency of medicines regulation for the benefit of all stakeholders.”

The new legislation was proposed by the European Commission in 2008 and adopted by the European Parliament and the Member States in December 2010. Highlights of the new legislation include:

• establishment of a new scientific committee, the Pharmacovigilance Risk Assessment Committee (PRAC);
• clarification of the roles and responsibilities of all actors involved in the monitoring of the safety and efficacy of medicines in Europe and strengthened coordination, leading to more robust and rapid EU decision-making;
• engagement of patients and healthcare professionals in the regulatory process, including direct consumer reporting of suspected adverse drug events;
• improved collection of key information on medicines, e.g. through risk-proportionate, mandatory post-authorisation safety and efficacy studies;
• more transparency and better communication, including publication of agendas and minutes of the PRAC and the possibility to hold public hearings.

The Agency is ready for the first meeting of the PRAC on 19 and 20 July 2012. All Member States have nominated their members. The European Commission has appointed six independent scientific experts who will also serve as members. The nomination of PRAC members representing patients and healthcare professionals will follow a new public call for expressions of interest.

Information about the roles and the functioning of the PRAC has been published today and can be found on the Agency’s website, together with more information about the new pharmacovigilance legislation.

Notes
1. This press release, together with all related documents, is available on the Agency’s website.
2. More information on the new pharmacovigilance legislation is available here.
3. The status report ‘Countdown to July 2012: the Establishment and Functioning of the PRAC’ is available on the Agency’s website.
4. The new pharmacovigilance legislation is comprised of Directive 2010/84/EU and Regulation (EU) No 1235/2010.
5. More information on the work of the European Medicines Agency can be found on its website

EMA boosts EU transparency with online publication of suspected side effect reports

 

 

 

Member States and the Agency release data on medicines in compliance with EudraVigilance access policy

31/05/2012 – The European Medicines Agency has today begun publishing suspected side effect reports for medicines authorised in the European Economic Area (EEA) on a new public website: http://www.adrreports.eu. The reports come directly from the European Union (EU) medicines safety database EudraVigilance, and are one of the many types of data used by regulators to monitor the benefits and risks of a medicine once authorised. The launch of the new website is part of the Agency’s continuing efforts to ensure EU regulatory processes are transparent and open and is a key step in the implementation of the EudraVigilance access policy.

The information published today relates to approximately 650 medicines and active substances authorised through the centralised procedure, which is managed by the Agency. Information on the website is presented in the form of a single report per medicine or active substance. Each report pulls together the total number of individual suspected side effect reports submitted to EudraVigilance by Member States and marketing-authorisation holders. These aggregated data can be viewed by age group, sex, type of suspected side effect and by outcome. Within a year the Agency aims to additionally publish suspected side effect reports for common drug substances used in nationally authorised medicines.

A side effect (also known as an adverse drug reaction) includes side effects arising from use of a medicine within the terms of the marketing authorisation as well as from use outside the terms of the marketing authorisation, including overdose, misuse, abuse and medication errors, and those associated with occupational exposure.

All information on the website relates to suspected side effects. Suspected side effects may not be related to or caused by the medicine, and as a result, the published information cannot be used to determine the likelihood of experiencing a side effect or as an indication that a medicine is harmful. All users of the website are asked to read and accept a disclaimer explaining how to understand the information before they view a web report.

Medicines are an important part of modern healthcare, providing effective treatments for many diseases and conditions. For a medicine to be authorised for use in the EU the benefits of the medicine must always outweigh the risks.

Today’s launch also highlights the importance of side effect reporting and pharmacovigilance in safeguarding public health within the EU. Side-effect reporting is a key element in ensuring the detection of new or changing safety issues, and the Agency continues to further strengthen its work with partners and stakeholders across Europe to ensure a robust system for safety signal detection.

In June, the Agency will launch the website in the remaining 22 official EU languages.

Press release issued May 31st, 2012 on the EMA website – http://www.ema.europa.eu