EMA to further temporarily scale back and suspend activities ahead of Brexit

As talks on the UK’s divorce settlement with the European Commission lumber on with still no resolution, the European Medicines Agency today said it will launch the next phase of its business continuity plan on October 1, 2018 at the latest.

This will allow the Agency to safeguard core activities related to the evaluation and supervision of medicines, while it has to intensify its preparations for the physical move to Amsterdam, Netherlands, in March 2019 and cope with significant staff loss.

The temporary cuts in activities are required because it has also become clear that the Agency will lose more staff than initially anticipated. Staff who will not relocate to Amsterdam have already started to leave the Agency and this trend is expected to accelerate. In addition, due to the employment rules in the Netherlands, 135 short-term contract staff will no longer be able to work for the EMA. Overall, the EMA expects a staff loss of about 30%, with a high degree of uncertainty regarding mid-term staff retention.