New guidance to ensure availability of veterinary medicines
New guidance to ensure the availability of veterinary medicines during the COVID-19 pandemic have been produced by the European Commission, European Medicines Agency and the Coordination Group for Mutual Recognition and Decentralised Procedure-Veterinary.
The joint guidance, which comes in the form of a question and answer document, is aimed at companies that develop, manufacture and distribute veterinary medicines to address some of the constraints posed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
It sets out areas where regulatory rules for veterinary medicines should be applied with greater flexibility to mitigate the risk of supply disruptions caused by the pandemic. The areas covered include:
- marketing authorisation procedures;
- safety monitoring;
- and inspections of manufacturing facilities and good manufacturing practice (GMP) for veterinary medicines.