The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 276 No 7394 p376
1 April 2006

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EMEA to focus on safety in 2006

Improving communication with patients and health care professionals and making medicines safer are two of the aims for the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) this year, the agency's work programme for 2006 reveals.

Further development of the EudraVigilance database and network will remain top of the EMEA’s medicines safety agenda. The agency will also aim to improve the quality of information available to patients and the availability of useful information to health care professionals. The two other areas it will focus on in the coming year are stimulating medicines research in the EU and strengthening the European medicines network.

The agency will also be assessing risk-management plans (RMPs), which must now be included with applications for marketing authorisations. RMPs identify known and potential risks with the medicinal product under appraisal, so that anticipatory risk-minimisation and pharmacovigilance measures can be established to protect public health.