DUBLIN – The EMA has activated a COVID-19 task force to coordinate and accelerate the European regulatory response to the pandemic. The task force is intended to take a lead role in shaping the development, authorization and post-approval surveillance of drugs and vaccines for treating or preventing COVID-19 infection.
The jury is still out on how much hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine actually help in the treatment or prevention of COVID-19, but desperate times have led desperate health care providers to use the antimalarial drugs to treat patients in desperate need of coronavirus cures.
DUBLIN – Novartis AG, Bristol Myers Squibb Co. and Sanofi SA were among firms that secured positive opinions from EMA’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) on marketing authorization applications for new therapies, which will progress to formal approvals 67 days from now. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the committee’s March meeting was held virtually.
LONDON – As the epicenter of the COVID-19 epidemic shifted to Europe and the number of deaths in Italy exceeded the toll in China, the EU stepped up efforts to mount a coordinated response, with a big boost for collaborative R&D funding and a call for clinical research to be pooled in multicenter, multi-arm randomized controlled trials.
LONDON – The U.K. life sciences sector has stepped into “a new reality” following publication of the government’s negotiating mandate on the future trading relationship with the EU. “Plan A is no longer on the table,” said Steve Bates, chief executive of the Bioindustry Association, who has spent three long years lobbying for a favorable deal for the industry.
DUBLIN – The EMA’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) diverged from the FDA on a key decision at its monthly meeting, which concluded Feb. 28. It refused to back an application from Eli Lilly and Co. for a line extension to its migraine prevention drug, Emgality (galcanezumab), which would have authorized the drug for preventing attacks during an episode of cluster headaches.
LONDON – Brexit finally becomes a reality at midnight central European time on Jan. 31, but for the life sciences industry uncertainty continues, as the U.K. enters an 11-month transition phase during which the terms of its future relationship with the EU must be negotiated.
The EMA’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) looked with favor on a bucketload of would-be drugs, issuing positive opinions for the European Commission to consider across a range of indications.
LONDON – Over the next decade pharmacovigilance will move on from a sole focus on adverse drug reactions (ADRs) to encompass monitoring of the in-market efficacy of medicines, according to Guido Rasi, executive director of EMA.
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