News briefs

Published: 1-Oct-2005


A public consultation exercise has been launched by the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) on a draft guideline over the pharmacovigilence for medicines used by babies, children and young people aged up to 18. The agency is grappling with European Commission concerns that more than 50% of medicines used to treat children are prescribed on an unlicensed or 'off-label' basis, because they have not been adequately tested, formulated and authorised for them. The EMEA guideline would be used to help companies implement incoming EU regulation on pediatric medicines, as well as toughening the monitoring of adult medicines. The consultation closes on 31 January 2006.

www.emea.eu.int/pdfs/human/phvwp/23591005en.pdf

The European Commission has published guidance over staging consultations with target patient groups or checking the readability of packaging leaflets. http://pharmacos.eudra.org/F2/pharmacos/docs/Doc2005/08_05/USERTESTING_20050 817.pdf

The European Medicines Agency (EMEA) has released a guideline on the clinical investigation of the pharmacokinetics of therapeutic proteins. www.emea.eu.int/pdfs/human/ewp/8924904en.pdf

EMEA has also released a guideline on the processing of (marketing authorisation) renewals in its centralised procedures (www.emea.eu.int/pdfs/human/regaffair/299000.pdf

And it has released a guideline on how to choose non-inferiority margins when testing a medicine's effectiveness compared with existing drugs.

www.emea.eu.int/pdfs/human/ewp/215899en.pdf.

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