EMEA Draft Transparency Policy published for Consultation

After the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been forming an internal Transparency Task Force to develop recommendations for making useful and understandable information about FDA activities and decision making (see our News from 10 June 2009), the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) has now released a draft transparency policy that sets out how the Agency intends to provide for greater clarity and openness in all areas of its operations.

The objectives of the transparency policy are:

• to apply a more proactive approach to transparency in the daily operations of the Agency;
• to further strengthen interaction with the Agency's stakeholders;
• to promote cooperation on transparency issues within the European medicines network.
• As with the FDA initiative, the public will have an opportunity to provide comments ("public consultation").

Consultation on the transparency policy is open until 25 September 2009.

The draft policy, the template for comments and further background information are available in the EMEA transparency policy section of the EMEA website.
 
Source: Press release

Wolfgang Schmitt
On behalf of the European Compliance Academy (ECA)