2008 Symposium to focus to continuous evolution and Eastern Europe

This year’s TOPRA annual symposium will be the fifth and will take place in Budapest in Hungary. As chair of the Symposium Working Party, I consider it a great privilege to invite you to this symposium in Eastern Europe.

With the European Medicines Regulatory Network encountering challenging issues related to capacity and availability of resources, the need to fully explore the role that each individual European Member State is able to play takes on greater import. Whereas the relatively younger Central and Eastern Member States still encounter challenges related to their participation into the Regulatory Network, they are playing an increasingly important and active role in regulatory approval procedures.

Keeping with TOPRA’s tradition, the annual symposium is again organised in collaboration with the regulatory agency from the Member State where the symposium is being held. This year we are closely working together with Prof. Tamas Paal and his colleagues at the National Institute of Pharmacy. In addition, members from HURAS, the Hungarian Regulatory Affairs Society, are contributing to the work of the Symposium Working Party. This has resulted in a very interesting programme that also includes highly respected speakers from the Central and Eastern European region.

The overall theme of this year’s symposium is Continuous Regulatory Evolution. Regulatory Affairs illuminates the dynamism of regulator affairs as field. As the name suggests, the only constant factor is the constant change in regulatory, legal and scientific matters that guide professtionals in their work. Are you also struggling with these dynamics and wondering whether these changes always consist of improvements? This symposium is the place to find out, as this question will be the red line through the sessions.

The mainstream of the symposium will cover hot topics related to human medicinal products and for the first time will also have break-out sessions, covering Biotechnology, Advanced Therapies and Electronic Submission. Building on the immense success of last year’s symposium, two parallel tracks have again been organised for the second day of the symposium, covering topics related to Veterinary Medicines and Medical Technologies.

Over and above the highly promising programme, the venue of the symposium, the Grand Hotel Royal, is simply spectacular. It will offer plenty of opportunity for networking and socializing, including the well-known symposium Gala Dinner.

I sincerely hope you will all come to the TOPRA fifth annual symposium in Budapest.

Patrizia Nestby, PhD, MSc (Regulatory Affairs)

For more information or to attend the TOPRA Symposium, please call +44 207 538 9502 or email meetings@topra.org.