The government is planning to offer the EU a new agreement under which the UK would participate in and accept EMA drug assessments Loic Venance/AFP/Getty ImagesNew drugs approved for sale in Europe after Brexit would be automatically licensed in the UK under new plans. In the first “sector-specific” announcement on Brexit, Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, revealed that the government wants to continue working with the European Medicines Agency. At present, the EMA regulates all new pharmaceutical products across member states, with about 20 per cent of individual drug assessments carried out by UK scientists. Unless an agreement can be reached, this arrangement would end in 2019 and the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency would have to take responsibility for assessing all new drugs independently. This could delay patients receiving new drugs as pharmaceutical companies tend to target the largest markets for regulatory approval first and Britain has…

Source: The Times July 03, 2017 23:03 UTC