European Medicines Agency heads for Amsterdam

The Agency now has less than 17 months to manage the move from London, ready to begin operations in Amsterdam by the end of March 2019. The Agency has committed to publishing a monitoring chart by early December that tracks the progress of the move. It intends to collaborate very closely with the Dutch authorities to allow approvals from local authorities, EMA’s Management Board and the EU budgetary authority to be carried out in parallel. The EMA will need to move the 900 households of EMA staff and 600 children of staff will need to be found schools. The move to Amsterdam will be popular with the staff at the Agency. Amsterdam emerged as the location likely to lead to the retention of most staff according to a staff survey conducted in September.

There is much to be done to keep the Agency’s vital work of ensuring the safety of medicines marketed in the EU remains on track during the transition from London to Amsterdam. The Agency will have to re-assign at least 230 medicines for which the UK has acted as rapporteur or co-rapporteur, around 23% of all medicines approved by the Agency so far. This will require the recruitment of substantial new expert resources from the remaining member states unless a way can be found of enabling the MHRA to continue providing these resources post-Brexit.