European Parliament’s ENVI Urges to Give EMA More Money and Staff

17 September 2019

GMP News

The European Parliament’s health committee has renewed its call for the region’s drug regulator to be given more money and staff. ENVI, the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, made the comment in its opinion about the European Union’s 2020 budget proposal.

Pascal Canfin, ENVI’s rapporteur for the budget opinion, used the opportunity to comment on the 2020 budget proposal to hit a point that the committee has made repeatedly in recent years.

“Where appropriate, more financial and human resources must be allocated to those agencies in order to fulfill their mandate and execute their tasks, and in order to promote a science-based approach in the Union,” - Canfin wrote in his final opinion on the draft budget.

The finalization of that headline comment on the budget came the day after ENVI voted on a series of proposed amendments to the EU’s financial plan. The proposals provided additional insights into the ways in which some members of ENVI think the EU is limiting the European Medicines Agency’s ability to fulfill its functions.

Specific concerns raised by ENVI members include the perceived failure of the EU budget to account for the additional work created for EMA by veterinary medicinal product regulations that came into force in January.

“When the draft 2020 budget was proposed by the Commission, the impact on EMA of the Regulation was not yet fully established. EMA should be provided with sufficient human and financial resources in 2020 to prepare for the implementation of these new tasks,” - five ENVI members wrote in a draft amendment.

Other members of the committee called for the EU to provide additional incentives for developers of orphan drugs, arguing that, “Patients suffering from rare diseases deserve the same quality of treatment as other patients.”

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