European laboratory cooperation

The medical authorities in Europe cooperate in a network called the Official Medicines Control Laboratories (OMCL).

The purpose of the network is to exchange knowledge and experience and to promote the elaboration of new common standards within the area of laboratory control of medicinal products.

There are two levels of cooperation

• General activities for all member and observer states of the European Convention on the Elaboration of a European Pharmacopoeia. These activities include quality assurance and proficiency testing.
• Specific activities involving EU/EEA countries only. These activities involve the coordination of regulatory control of medicines on the market including Official Control Authority Batch Release (OCABR) for human biological medicinal products, and control of centrally authorised products (CAP).

Further information and guidelines can be found at website of the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines (EDQM), www.pheur.org. EDQM serves as secretariat to the OMCLs.