Health Canada is the department of the Government of Canada responsible for national health policy. The department itself is also responsible for numerous federal health-related agencies, including the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), among others. These organizations help to ensure compliance with federal law in a variety of healthcare, agricultural, and pharmaceutical activities. This responsibility also involves extensive collaboration with various other federal- and provincial-level organizations in order to ensure the safety of food, health, and pharmaceutical products—including the regulation of health research and pharmaceutical manufacturing/testing facilities.
Good manufacturing practices (GMP) are the practices required in order to conform to the guidelines recommended by agencies that control the authorization and licensing of the manufacture and sale of food and beverages, cosmetics, pharmaceutical products, dietary supplements, and medical devices. These guidelines provide minimum requirements that a manufacturer must meet to assure that their products are consistently high in quality, from batch to batch, for their intended use. The rules that govern each industry may differ significantly; however, the main purpose of GMP is always to prevent harm from occurring to the end user. Additional tenets include ensuring the end product is free from contamination, that it is consistent in its manufacture, that its manufacture has been well documented, that personnel are well trained, and that the product has been checked for quality more than just at the end phase. GMP is typically ensured through the effective use of a quality management system (QMS).
The regulation of therapeutic goods, defined as drugs and therapeutic devices, varies by jurisdiction. In some countries, such as the United States, they are regulated at the national level by a single agency. In other jurisdictions they are regulated at the state level, or at both state and national levels by various bodies, as in Australia.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is an agency of the European Union (EU) in charge of the evaluation and supervision of medicinal products. Prior to 2004, it was known as the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products or European Medicines Evaluation Agency (EMEA).
The British Pharmacopoeia (BP) is the national pharmacopoeia of the United Kingdom. It is an annually published collection of quality standards for UK medicinal substances, which is used by individuals and organisations involved in pharmaceutical research, development, manufacture and testing.
In the European Economic Area, a supplementary protection certificate (SPC) is a sui generis intellectual property (IP) right that extends the duration of certain rights associated with a patent. It enters into force after expiry of a patent upon which it is based. This type of right is available for various regulated, biologically active agents, namely human or veterinary medicaments and plant protection products. Supplementary protection certificates were introduced to encourage innovation by compensating for the long time needed to obtain regulatory approval of these products.
A biopharmaceutical, also known as a biologic(al) medical product, or biologic, is any pharmaceutical drug product manufactured in, extracted from, or semisynthesized from biological sources. Different from totally synthesized pharmaceuticals, they include vaccines, whole blood, blood components, allergenics, somatic cells, gene therapies, tissues, recombinant therapeutic protein, and living medicines used in cell therapy. Biologics can be composed of sugars, proteins, nucleic acids, or complex combinations of these substances, or may be living cells or tissues. They are isolated from living sources—human, animal, plant, fungal, or microbial. They can be used in both human and animal medicine.
In the experimental (non-clinical) research arena, good laboratory practice or GLP is a quality system of management controls for research laboratories and organizations to ensure the uniformity, consistency, reliability, reproducibility, quality, and integrity of products in development for human or animal health through non-clinical safety tests; from physio-chemical properties through acute to chronic toxicity tests.
The European Pharmacopoeia is a major regional pharmacopoeia which provides common quality standards throughout the pharmaceutical industry in Europe to control the quality of medicines, and the substances used to manufacture them. It is a published collection of monographs which describe both the individual and general quality standards for ingredients, dosage forms, and methods of analysis for medicines. These standards apply to medicines for both human and veterinary use.
EudraLex is the collection of rules and regulations governing medicinal products in the European Union.
The European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines & HealthCare (EDQM) is a Directorate of the Council of Europe that traces its origins and statutes to the Convention on the Elaboration of a European Pharmacopoeia.
An experimental drug is a medicinal product that has not yet received approval from governmental regulatory authorities for routine use in human or veterinary medicine. A medicinal product may be approved for use in one disease or condition but still be considered experimental for other diseases or conditions.
ATCvet code QIImmunologicals is a section of the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Classification System for veterinary medicinal products, a system of alphanumeric codes developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) for the classification of drugs and other medical products for veterinary use.
The European Community Reference Laboratory for Fish Diseases is located in Frederiksberg in Denmark at the National Veterinary Institute. It is funded by the European Commission.
In the European Union, the Qualified Person Responsible For Pharmacovigilance (QPPV) is an individual, usually an employee of a pharmaceutical company, who is personally responsible for the safety of the human pharmaceutical products marketed by that company in the EU. This function was established in 2004 by article 23 of regulation (EC) No 726/2004. The article establishes that the holder of a marketing authorization for a drug for human use must have a QPPV. When a company submits an application for permission to bring a medicinal product onto the market, the company submits a description of its system for monitoring the safety of the product in actual use and proof that the services of a QPPV are in place.
The European Partnership for Alternative Approaches to Animal Testing (EPAA) promotes the application of Russell and Burch’s 3Rs principles in meeting regulatory requirements for products such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals, soaps, detergents and cosmetics. The EPAA covers research and development, as well as the use of 3Rs approaches in regulatory compliance and communication and dissemination.
The Heads of Medicines Agencies (HMA) is a network of both the human and veterinary medicines agencies of the European Economic Area.
The rapid development in the multidisciplinary field of tissue engineering has resulted in a variety of new and innovative medicinal products, often carrying living cells, intended to repair, regenerate or replace damaged human tissue. Tissue engineered medicinal products (TEMPs) vary in terms of the type and origin of cells and the product’s complexity. As all medicinal products, the safety and efficacy of TEMPs must be consistent throughout the manufacturing process. Quality control and assurance are of paramount importance and products are constantly assessed throughout the manufacturing process to ensure their safety, efficacy, consistency and reproducibility between batches. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is responsible for the development, assessment and supervision of medicines in the EU. The appointed committees are involved in referral procedures concerning safety or the balance of benefit/risk of a medicinal product. In addition, the committees organize inspections with regards to the conditions under which medicinal products are being manufactured. For example, the compliance with good manufacturing practice (GMP), good clinical practice (GCP), good laboratory practice (GLP) and pharmacovigilance (PhV).
The distribution of medications has special safety and security considerations. Some drugs require cold chain management in their distribution.
The Spanish Agency of Medicines and Medical Devices is a regulatory agency of the Spanish administration that acts as the highest sanitary authority in the country in terms of medical safety on medicines, health products, cosmetics and personal care products.
