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GROWING THE RESPONSIBLE USE OF MEDICINES
UNITING IN DISASTERS
Responsible use of medicines should run through all
our practices and in all situations, including disasters.
During Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, members
of the Military and Emergency Pharmacy Section
(MEPS) were able to use the FIP MEPS discussion site
to collaborate, liaise and problem solve. Significant
support was also relayed to our local Philippines
association for post-typhoon activities.
FACILITATING UNIVERSAL HEALTH COVERAGE
Getting medicines to patients at the right time can be helped by faster
approval processes. By February 2014, five new biowaiver monographs had
been published by the regulatory sciences special interest group s focus
group on the biopharmaceutics classification system (BCS) and biowaivers,
taking the list of monographs produced by this group to over 40.
The biowaiver procedure uses simple dissolution methods rather than
expensive and time-consuming pharmacokinetic studies in humans to
test for bioequivalence of drug products, thus reducing the time to gain
marketing authorisation.
BRIDGING GAPS
FIP co-sponsored an international symposium on bridging studies,
held in Taipei, China Taiwan, to work on their harmonisation. Why is
harmonisation important? Most medicines are currently developed for
exclusive use in one country, and there is a continuing debate on how
best to use clinical data obtained from global studies so as to avoid
duplicative testing, thus reducing delay in availability of medicines
and the cost of development. After the symposium, it was announced
that 12 countries had tentatively agreed to work together to speed up
launching new medicines in the Asia-Pacific region. read more
read more
VIGNETTES 2013/14