A pharmacopoeia is a compendium of regulations relating to the quality of medicinal products. In Switzerland, it comprises the European Pharmacopoeia (Pharmacopoea Europaea) and the Swiss Pharmacopoeia (Pharmacopoea Helvetica).
60th anniversary: European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines & HealthCare and European Pharmacopoeia
In 1964, Switzerland was one of the first eight signatories of the Convention on the Elaboration of a European Pharmacopoeia
07.06.2024
The umbrella organisation, the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines & HealthCare (EDQM), and the European Pharmacopoeia are both celebrating their 60th anniversary in 2024. Switzerland was among the founding members in 1964 and has since played an active role. In addition to the 39 current member states in Europe, more than 30 other countries and organisations are incorporated as observers into the work of the European Pharmacopoeia. They ensure that the European Pharmacopoeia also plays an important role at global level. The EDQM is also the patron of official national laboratories, which are organised in the Official Medicines Control Laboratory (OMCL) network. Switzerland has another reason to celebrate this year, as the Swissmedic OMCL laboratory on Bern’s Freiburgstrasse is a member of the network – which celebrated its 30th anniversary this spring.
The EDQM anniversary conference is taking place on 11 and 12 June 2024 in Strasbourg. Professionals from around the world are expected to attend – primarily pharmacopoeia regulatory authority members, but also specialists from industry and academia as well as politicians.
Tobias Gosdschan is head of the Pharmacopoeia Division at Swissmedic. He leads the delegation representing Switzerland in the European Pharmacopoeia Commission, a body which he also chaired between 2016 and 2019. Gosdschan is looking forward to the event: “I’m delighted to be attending the anniversary conference. The European Pharmacopoeia is a model of success. The objective to create uniform framework conditions in terms of quality, and to thereby provide all patients with high-quality medicinal products, has remained unchanged for 60 years.”
Interested parties can following the livestream of the event at this link:
Supplementary information
Explanatory video
The pharmacopoeia explained in 3 minutes
Website of the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicine & Healthcare
Anniversary event
OMCL network
