October 2015
Follow up to meeting with European Health Commissioner
At our meeting in June with Mr Andriukaitis, European Commissioner for Health, he asked us to provide information on the concrete barriers and issues our industry is facing with feasible solutions. Two sub-groups have been set up to prepare a clear brief for the Commissioner: one addressing the technical and regulatory issues (technical group) and one addressing the pharma-political ones (strategy group). The technical group met in Frankfurt on 16 October and on 28 October, the Strategy group met in Cologne. The preliminary results will be discussed with Mrs Nowak, member of the Commissioner’s cabinet, on 9 December.
Regulatory environment
- Homeopathic medicinal products "administered orally or externally" - What does it mean? Opinions differ as to the definition of the terms, ‘administered orally or externally,’ as used in the criteria for simplified registration of homeopathic medicinal products under Article 14 of Directive 2001/83/EC. ECHAMP has developed a new position paper reporting on more than 40 references for these terms from European Guidance and published literature and recommending how these terms should be understood. This was sent to European Commission officials, Mrs Engraff, Mr Soro and Mrs Nowak, and to Mrs Bruno, chair of the Homeopathic Medicinal Products Working Group (HMPWG).
- Mr. Mol, General Secretary, participated in a working group on pharmaceutical quality in Karlsruhe on 29 October.
Team meeting
On the 13 October the team met in Brussels. They worked on the upcoming publication Facts & Figures and on the new ECHAMP website. They also discussed the preparation of the Annual Report 2016 and the Membership Assembly 2016.
Office
The office moved on 20 October – The new address is rue Washington 40 – B1050 Brussels. The phone and fax numbers remains the same.