European Medicines Agency launches PRIME initiative to speed up medicine approval

A programme to speed up the process of approving new medicines has been set up by the European Medicines Agency.

The PRIME (PRIority MEdicines) initiative will offer enhanced support to firms that are developing drugs designed to target unmet medical needs.

It will focus on medicines that could potentially offer a "major therapeutic advantage" over existing treatments or help people for whom no treatment options are currently available.

Vytenis Andriukaitis, EU commissioner for health and food safety, said the launch of PRIME is a big step forward for patients and families that have long been hoping for earlier access to safe treatments.

"Through enhanced scientific support this scheme could also help, for example, to accelerate the development and authorisation of new classes of antibiotics or their alternatives in an era of increasing antimicrobial resistance," he commented.

Professor Guido Rasi, executive director of the European Medicines Agency, added that the ultimate aim is to encourage better planning of medicine development to help companies "generate the high quality data we need to assess quality, safety and efficacy of medicines".