By: Margaret A. Hamburg, M.D.
I have recently returned from the 8th International Summit of Heads of Medicines Regulatory Agencies, which was hosted on December 3-6, 2013, by the Netherlands’ Medicines Evaluation Board in Amsterdam. These annual meetings are an important forum for the exchange of information, views and regulatory strategies among the chief executives of major and like-minded medicines regulatory agencies. I was particularly pleased to be able to contribute to these discussions as a speaker on a panel on regulatory science together with Dr. Tatsuya Konda, M.D., Ph.D., the chief executive of Japan’s Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency.
The theme of this year’s summit was "Changes in the Regulatory Landscape," and my foreign colleagues and I had plenty to talk about. Overcoming the challenges and reaping the benefits of regulatory science is even more critical today, when the FDA and other regulatory agencies face new and growing tasks in the global marketplace. All of us have to contend with the huge changes in the size and nature of international trade caused by emerging markets, developing economies, and increased cross-border flows of goods, information and capital.
As regulators, my international counterparts and I have many issues in common. They include the increasing complexity of new drug products and drug development; growing geographic distribution of markets; greater demands for public accountability and transparency in our work; budgetary and political challenges to regulatory oversight; and, the overriding need to keep up with the rapid changes in science and technology. Given these shared concerns, building cross-border partnerships and finding common solutions is paramount.
I reiterated to the conference our goal to encourage and strengthen cooperation and collaboration among those nations that are actively working to advance regulatory science. Regulatory science endeavors to use current and emerging knowledge to create new tools, standards and approaches for reliable assessment of the safety, effectiveness, quality and performance of medical products. At its best, this process is based on findings, evaluations, discussions and collaboration by scientists throughout the world. And it is meetings like the recent summit in Amsterdam that help enhance this cooperation and the development of strategies that promote and strengthen the understanding, acceptance and application of regulatory science.
As the FDA embraces its international role in today’s complex regulatory environment, we fully accept the need to think and act globally more than ever before. I look forward to working with other nations’ regulators, the academic community, non-governmental organizations and industry as we join forces to advance regulatory science, the road to even better protection and advancement of the public health.
Margaret A. Hamburg, M.D., is the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration
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