Since 2015 Switzerland is supporting efforts of African medicines regulatory authorities to harmonise their procedures within their respective regional economic community in order to accelerate access to quality medical products. To-date, Switzerland is the only donor country to combine technical expertise - through its national medicines regulatory agency Swissmedic - with knowledge on health and development in low and middle-income countries as well as financial support provided by SDC.

Initially, Swiss support focused on the East African Community. In the frame of the African Medicines Regulatory Harmonisation initiative (AMRH) it is now being gradually extended to other regional economic communities, e.g. ECOWAS, SADC and IGAD. Under the overall coordination of WHO, Swissmedic assists in the review of technical guidelines, supports joint regional assessments of submitted medicines or joint inspections of manufacturing sites and conducts Good Manufacturing Practice trainings. In cooperation with WHO, Swissmedic also offers twice a year a regulatory training for experts from sub-Saharan regulatory agencies, e.g. on market surveillance. SDC focuses on the shaping and governance of the AMRH Partnership Platform.

Alexander Schulze

Co-Head Global Programme Health, SDC

alexander.schulze@eda.admin.ch