Publications
2019 Workshop report – Optimising the regulatory review process by evaluating performance and addressing good reliance practices
This workshop was part of a series of workshops on reliance, which continues to be an important area of focus for CIRS. It builds on the outcomes of a [...]
2019 Workshop report – Identifying and understanding uncertainty during development
This workshop was a follow-on from a collaborative forum held in Utrecht in 2018 entitled What new research can enable a joint approach by regulatory and HTA agencies to [...]
Liberti et al 2020 – Evaluation of the Caribbean Regulatory System centralised assessment process
Background: The Caribbean Regulatory System is a centralized medicine assessment procedure established to serve the needs of the Member States of the CARICOM region. In order to better understand [...]
Wang et al 2020 – Benchmarking HTA agencies: methodological challenges and recommendations
Objectives: The objectives of the study were to establish a benchmarking tool to collect metrics to enable increased clarity regarding the differences and similarities across health technology assessment (HTA) [...]
CIRS 2019 Annual Report
We're delighted to present the inaugural CIRS Annual Report, which provides a summary of projects and workshops undertaken in 2019, as well as a historical perspective of CIRS achievements [...]
An independent perspective on the East African Community Medicines Regulatory Harmonisation initiative
African regulators are taking bold transformative steps to optimise the effective and efficient use of their agency resources to assure access to quality, safe and effective medicines. In particular, [...]
CIRS RD Briefing 78 – HTA outcomes in Australia, Canada and Europe 2015-2019
This Briefing presents data from HTADock, an ongoing metrics study that collects data on new active substances (NASs) appraised by eight HTA agencies and analyses synchronisation between the regulatory [...]
Bujar et al 2020 – A Process for Evaluating Quality Decision-Making Practices
Background: The development of a medicine is not only underpinned by good science but also by Quality Decision-Making Practices (QDMPs). Indeed, it is important to ensure that all organisations [...]
Rodier et al 2020 – Use of the CPP in 18 maturing markets
Background: The certificate of pharmaceutical product (CPP) was implemented to accelerate the availability of new drugs in developing countries by providing evidence of the quality of products and reducing [...]
Keyter et al 2020 – Can standardisation of the Public Assessment Report improve benefit-risk communication?
Background: National regulatory authorities (NRAs) make the decision to register a medicine based on an assessment of its benefits and risks and publicly available assessment reports are used as [...]
Bujar et al 2020 – Documentation of Quality Decision-Making Practices
Background: Pharmaceutical companies and regulatory agencies endeavor to relate their decision making with outcomes to improve future decision making and to ensure that gained knowledge is fed back into [...]
Patel et al 2020 – Analysis of regulatory review timelines for ANVISA
Background: The Brazilian health regulatory agency (Agência Nacional de Vigilância Sanitária, ANVISA) has embarked on transformational initiatives to fulfill its mandate to provide timely access to safe, effective, and [...]
CIRS RD Briefing 77 – New drug approvals in six major authorities
This Briefing presents the results from the CIRS annual analysis of New Active Substance (NAS) approvals by six major regulatory agencies: the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the US Food [...]
Mohd Sani et al 2020 – Evaluation of the Malaysian regulatory process using OpERA methodology
Introduction: The National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) embarked on a regulatory-strengthening program and is evaluating its processes. Optimising Efficiencies in Regulatory Agencies (OpERA) is a regulatory-strengthening program that provides [...]
Sithole et al 2020 – Evaluating the success of ZaZiBoNa
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) collaborative medicines registration initiative ZaZiBoNa is a successful regional work-sharing initiative on the African continent. This paper reviews the history of the ZaZiBoNa [...]
CIRS RD Briefing 76 – Mexican therapeutic landscape
An efficient regulatory process can be reflected in measurable positive health impacts; conversely, activities that slow or impede regulatory efficiency and predictability can be detrimental. Recent developments in the [...]
CIRS RD Briefing 75 – Emergency Use Pathways (EUPs)
It has become clear that agencies have a number of pathways that can be used during public health emergencies for the authorisation of therapeutics and vaccines. Some of these [...]
Keyter et al 2020 – Implementation of a Framework for an Abridged Review Using Good Reliance Practices: Optimising the Medicine Regulatory Review Process in South Africa
Background This study sought to identify criteria and current practices for implementing an abridged review process and understanding barriers and enablers in utilizing reliance models and to offer recommendations [...]
Mashaki Ceyhan et al 2020 – Patients’ perspectives of the pharmaceutical regulatory and reimbursement system in Istanbul, Turkey
The aim of this study was to explore patients’ knowledge and perspectives in Istanbul, Turkey about the pharmaceutical regulatory review and reimbursement processes with respect to access to new [...]
Koyuncu et al 2020 – Evaluation of the performance of the Turkish regulatory agency: recommendations for improved patients’ access to medicines
Background: This study was to evaluate the Turkish regulatory review process and timelines between 2016 and 2018 with a view to assess the changes that had taken place since [...]
CIRS RD Briefing 74 – OpERA programme
CIRS has collected regulatory assessment data for over 20 years, initially with ICH and ICH-observing countries. The OpERA programme, “Optimising Efficiencies in Regulatory Agencies (OpERA)”, was initiated through CIRS [...]
Keyter et al 2019 – Evaluation of the performance of the South African regulatory agency
Background Timely access to new medicines may be addressed through strengthening of registration efciencies and timelines by establishing and refning value-added registration processes, resources, and systems. The aims of this [...]
Kühler et al 2019 – To what degree are review outcomes aligned for new active substances between the EMA and the US FDA?
Objective To compare review outcome alignment between European Medicines Agency (EMA) and US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for medicines approved by both agencies in the time period 2014–2016. Design [...]
Project report – Monitoring implementation and adherence to ICH guidelines
Background: According to the International Council for Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (ICH) Articles of Association, the regulatory members of ICH are expected to implement [...]
Executive Colloquium report – What is the value and return on investment for our company to maintain a regulatory policy function?
In June 2019, the Centre for Innovation in Regulatory Science (CIRS) held an Executive Colloquium in Rockville, MD, USA that brought together representatives from multinational pharmaceutical companies to gauge [...]
CIRS RD Briefing 73 – HTA outcomes 2014-18
Timely recommendation for drug reimbursement by health technology assessment (HTA) agencies is critical to ensure that patient access to medicines of therapeutic value is not delayed. As part of an [...]
CIRS RD Briefing 71 – Trends in the regulatory landscape Latin America
To address the complex challenges in the global regulatory environment and the growing demand for patient access to new medicines, regulatory agencies in Latin America are actively engaging in regulatorystrengthening [...]
CIRS RD Briefing 72 – Trends in the regulatory landscape Asia
To address the complex challenges in the global regulatory environment and the growing demand for patient access to new medicines, regulatory agencies in Asia are actively engaging in regulatory-strengthening and [...]
CIRS RD Briefing 70 – New approvals in six regulatory authorities 2009-18
Major improvements in the regulatory environment as well as changes in strategies of multinational companies have led to a general decrease in the time to marketing authorisation and improved consistency [...]
McAuslane et al 2019 – Confluence of Accelerated Regulatory and HTA Access Pathways
There is a growing interest in aligning accelerated regulatory pathways with flexible access and reimbursement pathways to expedite the equitable availability of high-quality, safe, and effective medicines that provide [...]
Keyter et al 2019 – South African Medicines Control Council: Comparison of Its Registration Process
Introduction: Comparisons between regulatory authorities of similar size and regulatory characteristics facilitate value-added benchmarking and provide insight into regulatory performance. Such comparisons highlight areas for improvement as authorities move [...]
Bujar et al 2019 – Quality decision making in Health Technology Assessment
Background: To evaluate the quality of the decision-making processes of pharmaceutical companies during medicines development for evidence generation to support reimbursement of new medicines and the appraisal recommendation decision-making process [...]
Bujar et al 2019 – Reliability and relevance of a decision-making instrument
Introduction: The Quality of Decision-Making Orientation Scheme (QoDoS) was developed to provide organisations involved in submission, approval and reimbursement of new medicines with a tool to improve the quality [...]
2018 Forum report – Managing uncertainties for products using early access pathways
In November 2018, a collaborative forum presented by CIRS and the Utrecht University WHO Collaborating Centre for Pharmaceutical Policy and Regulation brought together regulatory, HTA, industry and academic perspectives [...]
2017 Workshop report – Flexible regulatory/access pathways
The aim of this workshop was to bring together companies, patient representatives and HTA, payer and regulatory agencies to discuss current perspectives and opportunities for Facilitated Regulatory Pathways (FRPs) [...]
CIRS RD Briefing 68: Regulatory and HTA decision making and access to medicines – the consequences of sequence
Historically, every jurisdiction with some form of regulatory agency capacity has undertaken the review of medicines as a first step in the market access process. This step is intended [...]
Wang et al 2018 – Building Synergy between Regulatory and HTA Agencies
Objectives: To evaluate the current practice of companies and agencies to assess the changes made in aligning regulatory and health technology assessment (HTA) stakeholders; to identify areas of commonality [...]
2018 Workshop report – Practical implementation of reliance models
This Workshop was a follow-on from that held in 2017 in Sao Paulo entitled “Facilitating the review of new medicines through risk-based evaluations: How can a stratification process be [...]
CIRS RD Briefing 66 – Benefit-Risk Assessment Tool (BRAT)
A structured approach to benefit-risk assessment is required as the cornerstone of a consistent way to evaluate and communicate observations regarding a medicine’s benefit-risk profile. The Benefit Risk Action Team [...]
2017 Workshop report – Facilitating review through risk-based evaluations
This Workshop built on previous CIRS global development workshops as well the work being undertaken by various groups in the areas of good regulatory and review practices and focused [...]
CIRS RD Briefing 60 – Early scientific advice from HTA agencies
This R&D Briefing 60 summarises highlights from the Technical Forum convened by CIRS on 11 December 2015, Heathrow, UK. Forum objectives: Identify companies’ current approaches to seeking early scientific [...]
Walker et al 2015 – Universal Framework for the Benefit-Risk Assessment of Medicines
A universal framework for the evaluation of the benefit-risk assessment of medicines during development by pharmaceutical companies and in the regulatory review by regulatory authorities is considered of value, [...]
CIRS RD Briefing 53 – Factors influencing drug roll out to six mature markets
Objective: To review NASs first launched between 2005‐2010 and to determine their regulatory status as of 31 December 2012 in USA, Europe, Japan, Canada, Switzerland and Australia to identify [...]
Liu et al 2013 – Characterising Good Review Practices across APEC agencies
As a first step in the implementation of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Best Regulatory Practice Project, the Centre for Innovation in Regulatory Science conducted a gap analysis survey [...]
Allen et al 2013 – Archetypes for non-ranking classification and comparison of European HTA systems
Introduction: European countries are increasingly utilising health technology assessment (HTA) to inform reimbursement decision-making. However, the current European HTA environment is very diverse, and projects are already underway to [...]
CIRS RD Briefing 51 – Submission lag time in the emerging markets
Lag Time (the time from which a product has been granted market authorisation in its first market to the time that its application is submitted for review by an [...]
Salek et al 2012 – Scorecards to Assess the Quality of a Regulatory Submission and Its Review
An efficient review depends not only on timely approval but also on ensuring the quality of the process from construction of the dossier to the ultimate regulatory decision. Two [...]
Liberti et al 2010 – Progress on the development of a benefit-risk framework for evaluating medicines
CIRS authors write about benefit-risk in the March 2010 issue of Regulatory Focus by the Regulatory Affairs Professionals Society (RAPS). Article reproduced with the permission of RAPS. Download [...]
Hirako et al 2007 – Comparison of the drug review process at five international regulatory agencies
Regulatory approval time is a key metric that is used to evaluate the performance of regulatory agencies. A new methodology has been developed to compare the regulatory review process [...]
CIRS RD Briefing 78 – HTA outcomes in Australia, Canada and Europe 2015-2019
This Briefing presents data from HTADock, an ongoing metrics study that collects data on new active substances (NASs) appraised by eight HTA agencies and analyses synchronisation between the regulatory [...]
CIRS RD Briefing 77 – New drug approvals in six major authorities
This Briefing presents the results from the CIRS annual analysis of New Active Substance (NAS) approvals by six major regulatory agencies: the European Medicines Agency (EMA), the US Food [...]
CIRS RD Briefing 76 – Mexican therapeutic landscape
An efficient regulatory process can be reflected in measurable positive health impacts; conversely, activities that slow or impede regulatory efficiency and predictability can be detrimental. Recent developments in the [...]
CIRS RD Briefing 75 – Emergency Use Pathways (EUPs)
It has become clear that agencies have a number of pathways that can be used during public health emergencies for the authorisation of therapeutics and vaccines. Some of these [...]
CIRS RD Briefing 74 – OpERA programme
CIRS has collected regulatory assessment data for over 20 years, initially with ICH and ICH-observing countries. The OpERA programme, “Optimising Efficiencies in Regulatory Agencies (OpERA)”, was initiated through CIRS [...]
CIRS RD Briefing 73 – HTA outcomes 2014-18
Timely recommendation for drug reimbursement by health technology assessment (HTA) agencies is critical to ensure that patient access to medicines of therapeutic value is not delayed. As part of an [...]
CIRS RD Briefing 71 – Trends in the regulatory landscape Latin America
To address the complex challenges in the global regulatory environment and the growing demand for patient access to new medicines, regulatory agencies in Latin America are actively engaging in regulatorystrengthening [...]
CIRS RD Briefing 72 – Trends in the regulatory landscape Asia
To address the complex challenges in the global regulatory environment and the growing demand for patient access to new medicines, regulatory agencies in Asia are actively engaging in regulatory-strengthening and [...]
CIRS RD Briefing 70 – New approvals in six regulatory authorities 2009-18
Major improvements in the regulatory environment as well as changes in strategies of multinational companies have led to a general decrease in the time to marketing authorisation and improved consistency [...]
CIRS RD Briefing 68: Regulatory and HTA decision making and access to medicines – the consequences of sequence
Historically, every jurisdiction with some form of regulatory agency capacity has undertaken the review of medicines as a first step in the market access process. This step is intended [...]
CIRS RD Briefing 66 – Benefit-Risk Assessment Tool (BRAT)
A structured approach to benefit-risk assessment is required as the cornerstone of a consistent way to evaluate and communicate observations regarding a medicine’s benefit-risk profile. The Benefit Risk Action Team [...]
CIRS RD Briefing 60 – Early scientific advice from HTA agencies
This R&D Briefing 60 summarises highlights from the Technical Forum convened by CIRS on 11 December 2015, Heathrow, UK. Forum objectives: Identify companies’ current approaches to seeking early scientific [...]
CIRS RD Briefing 53 – Factors influencing drug roll out to six mature markets
Objective: To review NASs first launched between 2005‐2010 and to determine their regulatory status as of 31 December 2012 in USA, Europe, Japan, Canada, Switzerland and Australia to identify [...]
CIRS RD Briefing 51 – Submission lag time in the emerging markets
Lag Time (the time from which a product has been granted market authorisation in its first market to the time that its application is submitted for review by an [...]
Liberti et al 2020 – Evaluation of the Caribbean Regulatory System centralised assessment process
Background: The Caribbean Regulatory System is a centralized medicine assessment procedure established to serve the needs of the Member States of the CARICOM region. In order to better understand [...]
Wang et al 2020 – Benchmarking HTA agencies: methodological challenges and recommendations
Objectives: The objectives of the study were to establish a benchmarking tool to collect metrics to enable increased clarity regarding the differences and similarities across health technology assessment (HTA) [...]
An independent perspective on the East African Community Medicines Regulatory Harmonisation initiative
African regulators are taking bold transformative steps to optimise the effective and efficient use of their agency resources to assure access to quality, safe and effective medicines. In particular, [...]
Bujar et al 2020 – A Process for Evaluating Quality Decision-Making Practices
Background: The development of a medicine is not only underpinned by good science but also by Quality Decision-Making Practices (QDMPs). Indeed, it is important to ensure that all organisations [...]
Rodier et al 2020 – Use of the CPP in 18 maturing markets
Background: The certificate of pharmaceutical product (CPP) was implemented to accelerate the availability of new drugs in developing countries by providing evidence of the quality of products and reducing [...]
Keyter et al 2020 – Can standardisation of the Public Assessment Report improve benefit-risk communication?
Background: National regulatory authorities (NRAs) make the decision to register a medicine based on an assessment of its benefits and risks and publicly available assessment reports are used as [...]
Bujar et al 2020 – Documentation of Quality Decision-Making Practices
Background: Pharmaceutical companies and regulatory agencies endeavor to relate their decision making with outcomes to improve future decision making and to ensure that gained knowledge is fed back into [...]
Patel et al 2020 – Analysis of regulatory review timelines for ANVISA
Background: The Brazilian health regulatory agency (Agência Nacional de Vigilância Sanitária, ANVISA) has embarked on transformational initiatives to fulfill its mandate to provide timely access to safe, effective, and [...]
Mohd Sani et al 2020 – Evaluation of the Malaysian regulatory process using OpERA methodology
Introduction: The National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) embarked on a regulatory-strengthening program and is evaluating its processes. Optimising Efficiencies in Regulatory Agencies (OpERA) is a regulatory-strengthening program that provides [...]
Sithole et al 2020 – Evaluating the success of ZaZiBoNa
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) collaborative medicines registration initiative ZaZiBoNa is a successful regional work-sharing initiative on the African continent. This paper reviews the history of the ZaZiBoNa [...]
Keyter et al 2020 – Implementation of a Framework for an Abridged Review Using Good Reliance Practices: Optimising the Medicine Regulatory Review Process in South Africa
Background This study sought to identify criteria and current practices for implementing an abridged review process and understanding barriers and enablers in utilizing reliance models and to offer recommendations [...]
Mashaki Ceyhan et al 2020 – Patients’ perspectives of the pharmaceutical regulatory and reimbursement system in Istanbul, Turkey
The aim of this study was to explore patients’ knowledge and perspectives in Istanbul, Turkey about the pharmaceutical regulatory review and reimbursement processes with respect to access to new [...]
Koyuncu et al 2020 – Evaluation of the performance of the Turkish regulatory agency: recommendations for improved patients’ access to medicines
Background: This study was to evaluate the Turkish regulatory review process and timelines between 2016 and 2018 with a view to assess the changes that had taken place since [...]
Keyter et al 2019 – Evaluation of the performance of the South African regulatory agency
Background Timely access to new medicines may be addressed through strengthening of registration efciencies and timelines by establishing and refning value-added registration processes, resources, and systems. The aims of this [...]
Kühler et al 2019 – To what degree are review outcomes aligned for new active substances between the EMA and the US FDA?
Objective To compare review outcome alignment between European Medicines Agency (EMA) and US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for medicines approved by both agencies in the time period 2014–2016. Design [...]
McAuslane et al 2019 – Confluence of Accelerated Regulatory and HTA Access Pathways
There is a growing interest in aligning accelerated regulatory pathways with flexible access and reimbursement pathways to expedite the equitable availability of high-quality, safe, and effective medicines that provide [...]
Keyter et al 2019 – South African Medicines Control Council: Comparison of Its Registration Process
Introduction: Comparisons between regulatory authorities of similar size and regulatory characteristics facilitate value-added benchmarking and provide insight into regulatory performance. Such comparisons highlight areas for improvement as authorities move [...]
Bujar et al 2019 – Quality decision making in Health Technology Assessment
Background: To evaluate the quality of the decision-making processes of pharmaceutical companies during medicines development for evidence generation to support reimbursement of new medicines and the appraisal recommendation decision-making process [...]
Bujar et al 2019 – Reliability and relevance of a decision-making instrument
Introduction: The Quality of Decision-Making Orientation Scheme (QoDoS) was developed to provide organisations involved in submission, approval and reimbursement of new medicines with a tool to improve the quality [...]
Wang et al 2018 – Building Synergy between Regulatory and HTA Agencies
Objectives: To evaluate the current practice of companies and agencies to assess the changes made in aligning regulatory and health technology assessment (HTA) stakeholders; to identify areas of commonality [...]
Walker et al 2015 – Universal Framework for the Benefit-Risk Assessment of Medicines
A universal framework for the evaluation of the benefit-risk assessment of medicines during development by pharmaceutical companies and in the regulatory review by regulatory authorities is considered of value, [...]
Liu et al 2013 – Characterising Good Review Practices across APEC agencies
As a first step in the implementation of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Best Regulatory Practice Project, the Centre for Innovation in Regulatory Science conducted a gap analysis survey [...]
Allen et al 2013 – Archetypes for non-ranking classification and comparison of European HTA systems
Introduction: European countries are increasingly utilising health technology assessment (HTA) to inform reimbursement decision-making. However, the current European HTA environment is very diverse, and projects are already underway to [...]
Salek et al 2012 – Scorecards to Assess the Quality of a Regulatory Submission and Its Review
An efficient review depends not only on timely approval but also on ensuring the quality of the process from construction of the dossier to the ultimate regulatory decision. Two [...]
Hirako et al 2007 – Comparison of the drug review process at five international regulatory agencies
Regulatory approval time is a key metric that is used to evaluate the performance of regulatory agencies. A new methodology has been developed to compare the regulatory review process [...]
2019 Workshop report – Optimising the regulatory review process by evaluating performance and addressing good reliance practices
This workshop was part of a series of workshops on reliance, which continues to be an important area of focus for CIRS. It builds on the outcomes of a [...]
2019 Workshop report – Identifying and understanding uncertainty during development
This workshop was a follow-on from a collaborative forum held in Utrecht in 2018 entitled What new research can enable a joint approach by regulatory and HTA agencies to [...]
CIRS 2019 Annual Report
We're delighted to present the inaugural CIRS Annual Report, which provides a summary of projects and workshops undertaken in 2019, as well as a historical perspective of CIRS achievements [...]
Project report – Monitoring implementation and adherence to ICH guidelines
Background: According to the International Council for Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (ICH) Articles of Association, the regulatory members of ICH are expected to implement [...]
Executive Colloquium report – What is the value and return on investment for our company to maintain a regulatory policy function?
In June 2019, the Centre for Innovation in Regulatory Science (CIRS) held an Executive Colloquium in Rockville, MD, USA that brought together representatives from multinational pharmaceutical companies to gauge [...]
2018 Forum report – Managing uncertainties for products using early access pathways
In November 2018, a collaborative forum presented by CIRS and the Utrecht University WHO Collaborating Centre for Pharmaceutical Policy and Regulation brought together regulatory, HTA, industry and academic perspectives [...]
2017 Workshop report – Flexible regulatory/access pathways
The aim of this workshop was to bring together companies, patient representatives and HTA, payer and regulatory agencies to discuss current perspectives and opportunities for Facilitated Regulatory Pathways (FRPs) [...]
2018 Workshop report – Practical implementation of reliance models
This Workshop was a follow-on from that held in 2017 in Sao Paulo entitled “Facilitating the review of new medicines through risk-based evaluations: How can a stratification process be [...]
2017 Workshop report – Facilitating review through risk-based evaluations
This Workshop built on previous CIRS global development workshops as well the work being undertaken by various groups in the areas of good regulatory and review practices and focused [...]