WHO committee report keeps pharma current

The WHO Expert Committee on Specifications for Pharmaceutical Preparations, following its meeting last October, has just released its 45th report. And talk about meeting productivity--the gathering in Geneva has yielded 15 new guidelines and recommendations, running the gamut from fundamentals to the nitty-gritty: "WHO good manufacturing practices: main principles for pharmaceutical products" and "GMPs for sterile pharmaceuticals" to "Release procedure of International Chemical Reference Substances" and "Model guidance for the storage and transport of time- and temperature-sensitive pharmaceutical products."

In this 45th report, the committee also provides elements for The International Pharmacopoeia.

The experts of this august committee advise the WHO Director-General on quality assurance for medicines. And they make available independent standards and guidelines for quality medicines to many countries through an international cooperative and communications structure dating from 1947.

The committee also serves the increasingly sought UN prequalification of medicines program run by the WHO. It even develops QA standards through an international consensus-building process.

- see the report