Ethics & GCP Forum: 30 years of traceability records and silk is best!
05/11/2013
Greer Deal, Director of Global Regulatory Services (GRS) presented at the Ethics and GCP Forum organised by the Institute of Clinical Research on 4th November 2013 in London. She ran through some of the obvious, and not so obvious, regulatory pathways for launching a herbal product onto the EU market. It was a lot to cover in only 45 minutes!
Other presentations were delivered by the Ministry of Defence and Sarah Fryer of QRCC Limited.
Alexander Prisco of the MoD explained how they were implementing a Quality System in the Biomedical Sciences Division and were hoping to roll this out across all the other divisions in due course. Although the subject matter was serious, the take home message was quite humorous: after considerable testing and research, the protection of the groin area is best served by silk underpants!
One of the key messages from Sarah's presentation on Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPs) is the importance of traceability and that records must be kept for at least 30 years after the end of the trial. If the company should cease to exist during this time, then those records have to be kept by the Competent Authority. Interestingly, in the case of long-term follow-up, if a company should cease to exist there has to be a plan to continue with the follow-up but that this responsiblity does not lie with the Competent Authority: this is true of all clinical trials and not just to ATMPs!
Author: Greer Deal, Director of Global Regulatory Services