The EMA has published its revised policy on handling declarations of interests for scientific committee members and experts. The revisions reflect a more balanced approach to handling conflicts of interests that aims to effectively restrict the involvement of experts with possible conflicts of interests in the Agency’s work while maintaining EMA’s ability to access the best available expertise.

The revised policy, which was endorsed by the EMA Management Board in March 2014, takes into account input from stakeholders at the Agency’s September 2013 public workshop 'Best expertise vs conflicts of interests: striking the right balance'.

'The priority of EMA is to ensure that the integrity of our scientific assessments of medicines is not compromised by private interests in the pharmaceutical industry,' said Noël Wathion, EMA’s Chief Policy Adviser. 'But over recent years we have also recognised that an overly-rigid approach may limit the availability of expertise needed to ensure the robust scientific assessment of medicines. The updated policy should now allow a level of involvement better tailored to the interest profile of each expert.'

For more details, go to: http://www.ema.europa.eu/ema/index.jsp?curl=pages/news_and_events/news/2014/11/news_detail_002216.jsp&mid=WC0b01ac058004d5c1