A consortium of five medicines regulators has published its strategic plan for the next three years to provide faster access to medicines by aligning regulation and policies.
The Access Consortium is a collaborative initiative uniting medicines regulators from Australia, Canada, Singapore, Switzerland and the UK.
Initially, the group consisted of regulatory authorities from Australia, Canada, Singapore and Switzerland, with the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) joining in October 2020.
The MHRA is also part of another group of regulators – some of which overlap with the Access Consortium – called Project Orbis. This programme includes regulators from Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Singapore, the UK, Brazil and other countries, and is coordinated by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Collectively, the Access Consortium represents a total population base of 150 million, according to its recently published strategy.
Among its strategic objectives for 2021-2024 is an aim to strengthen access work-sharing initiatives, by increasing the number of applications and increasing the variety of health products assessed collectively.
The consortium will also work to improve the work-sharing processes through the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition, the consortium is aiming to expand the life cycle approach by maximising collaboration through the use of real-world data and real-world evidence in clinical trial design and regulatory approaches.
To ensure the uptake of innovative health products, the consortium hopes to increase regulatory capacity while collaborating with key national healthcare systems partners.