Regulation (EC) No 1394/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 November 2007 on advanced therapy medicinal products and amending Directive 2001/83/EC and Regulation (EC) No 726/2004 (Text with EEA relevance)

• Published date: 10 December 2007
• Official Gazette Publication: Diario Oficial de la Unión Europea, L 324, 10 de diciembre de 2007

2007R1394 — EN — 02.07.2012 — 001.001

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This document is meant purely as a documentation tool and the institutions do not assume any liability for its contents

►B REGULATION (EC) No 1394/2007 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 13 November 2007 on advanced therapy medicinal products and amending Directive 2001/83/EC and Regulation (EC) No 726/2004 (Text with EEA relevance) (OJ L 324, 10.12.2007, p.121)

Amended by:

		Official Journal
		No	page	date
►M1	REGULATION (EU) No 1235/2010 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 15 December 2010	L 348	1	31.12.2010

Corrected by:

►C1 Corrigendum, OJ L 087, 31.3.2009, p. 174 (1394/2007)

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▼B

REGULATION (EC) No 1394/2007 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL

of 13 November 2007

on advanced therapy medicinal products and amending Directive 2001/83/EC and Regulation (EC) No 726/2004

(Text with EEA relevance)

THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,

Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular Article 95 thereof,

Having regard to the proposal from the Commission,

Having regard to the Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee ( 1 ),

After consulting the Committee of the Regions,

Acting in accordance with the procedure laid down in Article 251 of the Treaty ( 2 ),

Whereas:

(1) New scientific progress in cellular and molecular biotechnology has led to the development of advanced therapies, such as gene therapy, somatic cell therapy, and tissue engineering. This nascent field of biomedicine offers new opportunities for the treatment of diseases and dysfunctions of the human body.

(2) Insofar as advanced therapy products are presented as having properties for treating or preventing diseases in human beings, or that they may be used in or administered to human beings with a view to restoring, correcting or modifying physiological functions by exerting principally a pharmacological, immunological or metabolic action, they are biological medicinal products within the meaning of Annex I to Directive 2001/83/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 November 2001 on the Community code relating to medicinal products for human use ( 3 ), read in conjunction with the definition of medicinal products in Article 1(2) thereof. Thus, the essential aim of any rules governing their production, distribution and use must be to safeguard public health.

(3) For reasons of clarity, complex therapeutic products require precise legal definitions. Gene therapy medicinal products and somatic cell therapy medicinal products have been defined in Annex I to Directive 2001/83/EC, but a legal definition of tissue engineered products remains to be laid down. When products are based on viable cells or tissues, the pharmacological, immunological or metabolic action should be considered as the principal mode of action. It should also be clarified that products which do not meet the definition of a medicinal product, such as products made exclusively of non-viable materials which act primarily by physical means, cannot by definition be advanced therapy medicinal products.

(4) According to Directive 2001/83/EC and the Medical Device Directives the basis for deciding which regulatory regime is applicable to combinations of medicinal products and medical devices is the principal mode of action of the combination product. However, the complexity of combined advanced therapy medicinal products containing viable cells or tissues requires a specific approach. For these products, whatever the role of the medical device, the pharmacological, immunological or metabolic action of these cells or tissues should be considered to be the principal mode of action of the combination product. Such combination products should always be regulated under this Regulation.

(5) Because of the novelty, complexity and technical specificity of advanced therapy medicinal products, specially tailored and harmonised rules are needed to ensure the free movement of those products within the Community, and the effective operation of the internal market in the biotechnology sector.

(6) This Regulation is a lex specialis, which introduces additional provisions to those laid down in Directive 2001/83/EC. The scope of this Regulation should be to regulate advanced therapy medicinal products which are intended to be placed on the market in Member States and either prepared industrially or manufactured by a method involving an industrial process, in accordance with the general scope of the Community pharmaceutical legislation laid down in Title II of Directive 2001/83/EC. Advanced therapy medicinal products which are prepared on a non-routine basis according to specific quality standards, and used within the same Member State in a hospital under the exclusive professional responsibility of a medical practitioner, in order to comply with an individual medical prescription for a custom-made product for an individual patient, should be excluded from the scope of this Regulation whilst at the same time ensuring that relevant Community rules related to quality and safety are not undermined.

(7) The regulation of advanced therapy medicinal products at Community level should not interfere with decisions made by Member States on whether to allow the use of any specific type of human cells, such as embryonic stem cells, or animal cells. It should also not affect the application of national legislation prohibiting or restricting the sale, supply or use of medicinal products containing, consisting of or derived from these cells.

(8) This Regulation respects the fundamental rights and observes the principles reflected in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and also takes into account the Council of Europe Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine: Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine.

(9) All other modern biotechnology medicinal products currently regulated at Community level are already subject to a centralised authorisation procedure, involving a single scientific evaluation of the quality, safety and efficacy of the product, which is carried out to the highest possible standard by the European Medicines Agency as established by Regulation (EC) No 726/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 March 2004 laying down Community procedures for the authorisation and supervision of medicinal products for human and veterinary use ( 4 ) (hereinafter referred to as the Agency). This procedure should also be compulsory for advanced therapy medicinal products in order to overcome the scarcity of expertise in the Community, ensure a high level of scientific evaluation of these medicinal products in the Community, preserve the confidence of patients and medical professions in the evaluation and facilitate Community market access for these innovative technologies.

(10) The evaluation of advanced therapy medicinal products often requires very specific expertise, which goes beyond the traditional pharmaceutical field and covers areas bordering on other sectors such as biotechnology and medical devices. For this reason, it is appropriate to create, within the Agency, a Committee for Advanced Therapies, which should be responsible for preparing a draft opinion on the quality, safety and efficacy of each advanced therapy medicinal product for final approval by the Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use. In addition, the Committee for Advanced Therapies should be consulted for the evaluation of any other medicinal product which requires specific expertise falling within its area of competence.

(11) The Committee for Advanced Therapies should gather the best available expertise on advanced therapy medicinal products in the Community. The composition of the Committee for Advanced Therapies should ensure appropriate coverage of the scientific areas relevant to advanced therapies, including gene therapy, cell therapy, tissue engineering, medical devices, pharmacovigilance and ethics. Patient associations and clinicians with scientific experience of advanced therapy medicinal products should also be represented.

(12) To ensure scientific consistency and the efficiency of the system, the Agency should ensure the coordination between the Committee for Advanced Therapies and its other Committees, advisory groups and working parties, notably the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use, the Committee on Orphan Medicinal Products, and the Scientific Advice Working Party.

(13) Advanced therapy medicinal products should be subject to the same regulatory principles as other types of biotechnology medicinal products. However, technical requirements, in particular the type and amount of quality, pre-clinical and clinical data necessary to demonstrate the quality, safety and efficacy of the product, may be highly specific. While those requirements are already laid down in Annex I to Directive 2001/83/EC for gene therapy medicinal products and somatic cell therapy medicinal products, they need to be established for tissue engineered products. This should be done through a procedure that provides for sufficient flexibility, so as to easily accommodate the rapid evolution of science and technology.

(14) Directive 2004/23/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council ( 5 ) sets standards of quality and safety for the donation, procurement, testing, processing, preservation, storage and distribution of human tissues and cells. This Regulation should not derogate from the basic

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