EU agency suspends 300 medicines tested by Indian CRO

The European Medicines Agency (EMA), Europe's medicines regulator, has recommended the suspension of over 300 generic drug approvals and drug applications citing "unreliable" tests conducted by Indian contract research firm Micro Therapeutic Research Labs.

The EMA has recommended suspending a number of nationally approved medicines for which bioequivalence studies were conducted by Micro Therapeutic Research Labs at two sites in India. Bioequivalence studies are usually the basis for approval of generic medicines.

EMA said the suspensions can be lifted once alternative data establishing bioequivalence are provided.

Such supporting data has already been provided for several of the medicines reviewed and EMA's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) recommended that these medicines can remain on the market.

The agency also recommended that medicines not yet authorised but which are being evaluated on the basis of bioequivalence studies from these sites should not be authorised until bioequivalence is demonstrated using alternative data.

The EMA said the review by CHMP concluded that data from studies conducted at the sites between June 2012 and June 2016 are unreliable and cannot be accepted as a basis for marketing authorisation in the EU.

EMA said the studies are unreliable because of problems in the way data and documents were managed at the sites. As a result, several medicines approved in the EU have been suspended.

However, there is no evidence of harm or lack of effectiveness of medicines authorised and being evaluated in the EU on the basis of studies at the sites.

Some of the medicines which have been recommended for suspension may be of critical importance (e.g. due to lack of available alternatives) in certain EU Member States. Therefore national authorities can temporarily postpone the suspension in the interest of patients. Member States should also decide whether recalls of the affected medicines are needed in their territories.

The CHMP's recommendation concerning these medicines will now be sent to the European Commission for a legally binding decision valid throughout the EU.

Micro Therapeutic Research Labs is a contract research organisation (CRO) which conducts the analytical and clinical parts of bioequivalence studies, some of which are used to support marketing authorisation applications of medicines in the EU.

The review of medicines studied by Micro Therapeutic Research Labs was started after inspections to check compliance with good clinical practice (GCP) by Austrian and Dutch authorities in February 2016. The inspections identified several concerns at the company's sites regarding misrepresentation of study data and deficiencies in documentation and data handling.