EMA Guideline on similar Biological Medicinal Products adopted

Last year the "Draft Guideline on Similar Biological Medicinal Products" was published by EMA.

After agreement of the revised draft by the Biosimilar Medicinal Products Working Party and Biologics Working Party in July, the CHMP adopted and published the final Guideline on 23 October 2014. They summarized the outline of the document as follows:

"This Guideline outlines the general principles to be applied for similar biological medicinal products (also known as biosimilars) as referred to in Directive 2001/83/EC, as amended, where it is stated that 'the general principles to be applied [for similar biological medicinal products] are addressed in a guideline taking into account the characteristics of the concerned biological medicinal product published by the Agency'.
This Guideline describes and addresses the application of the biosimilar approach, the choice of the reference product and the principles for establishing biosimilarity.

The scope of the guideline is to fulfil the requirement of section 4, Part II, Annex I to Directive 2001/83/EC, as amended, which states that ‘the general principles to be applied [for similar biological medicinal products] are addressed in a guideline taking into account the characteristics of the concerned biological medicinal product published by the Agency’."

The date for coming into effect is 30 April 2015 (with the advice: After adoption by CHMP applicants may apply some or all provisions of this guideline in advance of this date.). The document replaces the Guideline on similar biological medicinal products (CHMP/437/04).

For further infromation please see the complete "Guideline on similar biological medicinal products".