The agency will not be located in Lille. A decision that upsets the leaders of the region because hundreds of jobs will not come. It is also a significant pole of influence which escapes France, even if theoretically the agency is independent.
The main mission of the European Medicines Agency is the protection and promotion of public and animal health through the evaluation and supervision of medicines. The EMA is an agency which applies the directives drawn up by the Health and Consumption Directorate which sits in Brussels and voted by the Parliament of Strasbourg.
The EMA is mainly responsible for the scientific evaluation of applications for marketing authorization for medicinal products submitted by pharmaceutical laboratories. If the decision is positive, marketing can automatically take place in the 28 countries of the European Union in the following month. It was invented to give all Europeans the same opportunity and not to create competitive practices between states. In France, the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM) is part of the EMA network. Its role is similar, but it is confined to French territory. National agencies can regain their independence on a drug at any time. This is one of the aspects that the Mediator affair highlighted, the French not having withdrawn the drug from the market as quickly as most countries. This also explains why, sometimes, certain drugs not available in France can be bought in Brussels. This is the case, for example, with certain medicines for diabetes.
Side effects under control …
The safety of drugs is continuously monitored by the EMA through a pharmacovigilance network. She can take appropriate action when reports of adverse reactions suggest changes in the benefit / harm balance of a drug.
Side effects for Lille…
The EMA is headed by an Executive Director who is independent from the states. It has a workforce of around 890 people. The first practical consequence of Brexit, the English see with great regret an organization, much envied, which will take another route than that of northern France. Too bad for those who believed in it and who suffered bitter defeat: moreover, in a joint press release, Martine Aubry, mayor of Lille, and Xavier Bertrand, president of the Hauts-de-France region, denounced the “late support and shy ”of the President of the Republic, Emmanuel Macron.
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