EFA

EFA board member Per-Åke Wecksell attended a training session at EMA headquarters, together with 30 other participants from different patient and consumers organisations. The aim of the training was to provide an overview of the work that EMA is doing, in particular regarding the Patients’ and Consumers’ Working Party, and train patient experts in reviewing package leaflets in medicines and other EMA information on medicines targeted to the public. The session provided a very good insight into EMA’s work, and the steps that are necessary to allow new medicines to be released on the market. More information on this can be found on the EMA homepage, and anyone in a position to attend a future EMA workshop on this topic is highly recommended to do so! The European Medicines Agency is a decentralised agency of the European Union, located in London. The Agency is responsible for the scientific evaluation of medicines developed by pharmaceutical companies for use in the European Union. Under the centralised procedure, companies submit a single marketing-authorisation application to the Agency. Once granted by the European Commission, a centralised (or ‘Community’) marketing authorisation is valid throughout the European Union (EU) and EEA-EFTA states (Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway). The Agency is involved in the scientific evaluation of the hundreds of medicines that fall within the scope of the centralized procedure.