The European Medicines Agency

For science, medicines, and health

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is an agency of the European Union (EU) responsible for the scientific evaluation, supervision and safety monitoring of medicines in the EU. It is a networking organisation whose activities involve thousands of experts from Europe, who work in EMA’s scientific committees. The network pools resources and expertise in the EU and gives EMA access to thousands of European scientific experts who take part in the regulation of medicines.

EMA activities include:

• Facilitates development and access to medicines
• Evaluates applications for marketing authorisation
• Monitors the safety of medicines across their lifecycle
• Provides information to healthcare professionals and patients

By fulfilling these goals, the EMA works closely with national competent authorities in a regulatory network. Next to this, it also implements policies and procedures to ensure it works independent, open and transparent, holding the highest standards in its scientific recommendations.

The EMA publishes a large amount of information in lay language about its work about medicines. It also seeks to publish clear and up-to-date information on funding, financial management and budgetary reporting. EMA strives to be as open and transparent as possible about how it reaches scientific conclusions. Their European public assessment reports describe the scientific basis for EMA’s recommendations on all centrally authorised medicines.