The European Medicines Agency (EMA) began the third phase of its Brexit preparedness business continuity plan on 1 October.
The latest stage of the process includes the temporary suspension of additional activities to allow the agency to safeguard core activities related to the evaluation and supervision of medicines while it prepares for the consequences of the U.K.'s exit from the European Union (EU) on 30 March 2019, according to the EMA. It will also help the agency deal with anticipated loss of staff from its move to Amsterdam.
"EMA will now temporarily suspend or scale back additional activities to ensure that resources can be redeployed so that its core activities can continue without interruption and to the same quality," said EMA Deputy Executive Director Noël Wathion in a statement. "Over the next few months, EMA will continue to carefully monitor staff intentions to relocate and the anticipated impact on its activities whilst planning for the critical time period when the agency will be moving to its new premises in Amsterdam."
More details on phase 3 of the Brexit business continuity plan can be found on the EMA's website. The EMA said it anticipates that phase 3 will have to be complemented with additional temporary suspensions or reductions as of 1 January. These measures will be launched as part of phase 4 of the business continuity plan in order to implement the necessary arrangements for the physical move to the Netherlands, according to the EMA.
The temporary suspension and scaling back of activities is currently scheduled to last until 30 June 2019, although this timeline will be reviewed in April 2019, after the agency has moved to its temporary building in Amsterdam.
