The European Medicines Agency (EMA), one of the biggest regulators in the EU, has closed its Canary Wharf headquarters in London, with 900 jobs lost ahead of the UK’s departure from the EU on March 29th.

As the Guardian writes, the closure of the site marks the loss of the UK’s central place in both pharmaceutical evaluation and monitoring. The organisation evaluates medication throughout the EU but it was forced to relocate to Amsterdam (which won the bid to host it in 2017) because regulation of pharmaceuticals should be done in a member state.

The EU’s decision to move the EMA elsewhere will certainly have come as a blow to those involved in the charting of progress of medicines through evaluation and testing cycles.

Back in September last year, it came to light that the UK’s role in evaluating new medication for sale to patients throughout the EU had collapsed, because no new work would be coming from Europe as a result of Brexit.

In a tweet issued the day the EMA shut up shop, the agency said: “Today, EMA staff lowered the 28 EU flags and symbolically said goodbye to their London offices. [EMA executive director] Guido Rasi expressed his thanks to the UK for its contribution to the work of the agency and for having been a gracious host of EMA since 1995.”

The government recently published guidance for industry and organisations involved in health and care to cover contingency plans if we are left with a no-deal Brexit scenario.

It might well prove useful to read the EU Exit Operational Readiness Guidance, since it lists the actions that providers and commissioners of health and care services throughout England should take if we do leave without a ratified deal in place.

This will ensure that you’re properly prepared for and can manage the risks, with the guidance having been sent out to all health and care providers to make sure the health and care system as a whole is prepared.

All organisations have been advised to undertake readiness planning, as well as local risk assessments, taking into account wider potential impacts. The guidance covers activities including the supply of medicines, vaccines, medical devices and clinical consumables, the supply of non-clinical consumables, goods and services, workforce, reciprocal healthcare, research and clinical trials, and data sharing, processing and access.

Government departments have been working to design customs and control arrangements at our border to ensure that goods can continue to enter the UK without delays because of additional controls and checks.

But the EU Commission has stated that in a no-deal scenario, full third country controls will be placed on people and goods entering the EU from the UK. The cross-government planning assumption has, as a result, been revised to prepare for the possible impact that third country controls by member states could have.

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