EU Directive 2005/28/EC – Good Clinical Practice

(3) Manufacturing requirements to be applied to investigational medicinal products are provided for by Commission Directive 2003/94/EC of 8 October 2003 laying down the principles and guidelines of good manufacturing practice in respect of medicinal products for human use and investigational medicinal products for human use [2]. Title IV of Directive 2001/83/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 November 2001 on the Community code relating to medicinal products for human use [3] contains the provisions applied for the authorisation for the manufacture of medicinal products as part of the requirements needed for the application for a marketing authorisation. Article 3(3) of that Directive establishes that these requirements are not applicable for medicinal products intended for research and development trials. It is therefore necessary to lay down minimal requirements regarding applications for and management of authorisations to manufacture or import investigational medicinal products, as well as for the granting and the content of the authorisations, in order to guarantee the quality of the investigational medicinal product used in the clinical trial.

[2] OJ L 262, 14.10.2003, p. 22.

[3] OJ L 311, 28.11.2003, p. 67. Directive as last amended by Directive 2004/27/EC (OJ L 136, 30.4.2004, p. 34).

(4) With regard to the protection of trial subjects and to ensure that unnecessary clinical trials will not be conducted, it is important to define principles and detailed guidelines of good clinical practice whilst allowing the results of the trials to be documented for use in a later phase.

(5) To ensure that all experts and individuals involved in the design, initiation, conduct and recording of clinical trials apply the same standards of good clinical practice, principles and detailed guidelines of good clinical practice have to be defined.

(6) Provisions for the functioning of the Ethics Committees should be established in each Member State on the basis of common detailed guidelines, in order to ensure the protection of the trial subject while at the same time allowing a harmonised application in the different Member States of the procedures to be used by Ethics Committees.