BRIEF—New partnership on medicines standards

The British Pharmacopoeia (BP) and United States Pharmacopeia (USP) have signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at improving collaboration and knowledge sharing.

BP provides a compendium of standards for pharmaceutical ingredients and finished medicinal products, while USP, an independent scientific organization, helps develop such standards.

The agreement relates to a wide area of standards setting for medicines, and will include staff exchanges and participation in events and joint working.

USP chief science officer Jaap Venema said: “Modern innovations make this partnership essential to ensuring the quality of medicines. Our partnership helps both organisations develop standards that are used to protect the quality of the medicines patients worldwide take each and every day.”