Essential Medicines and Pharmaceutical Policies (EMP)

WHO’s goal in medicines is to help save lives and improve health by ensuring the quality, efficacy, safety and rational use of medicines, including traditional medicines. Our vision is that people everywhere have access to the essential medicines they need; that the medicines are safe, effective, and of good quality; and prescribed and used rationally.

To improve on the delivery of this goal and vision, the former Department of Medicines Policy and Standards and Department of Technical Cooperation for Essential Drugs and Traditional Medicine have been combined to create one Essential Medicines and Pharmaceutical Policies Department. This merger and renaming of the department does not indicate that any one component is less of a priority, rather that together we can better deliver on all priorities in a more coordinated way. Visit "'About us'" to learn more.

A new WHO Medicines Strategy for 2008-2013 is being developed. Your comments and input on the draft strategy are valued contributions to making this a strong guiding document. Visit "'News and Events'" to review the draft strategy document and learn more about the process.

Areas of work

Medicines Policy National drug policies, Technical cooperation, Medicines strategy Financing and Supply Management Finance, Prices, Supply management Quality & Safety Norms and standards, Alerts, GMP, ICDRA, INN, The International Pharmacopoeia, Quality assurance, Pharmacovigilance Prequalification of Medicines WHO-UNICEF-UN Project Controlled Substances Substance evaluation for drug control treaties Access to controlled medications

Selection and Rational Use Selection and use of medicines, rational use Intellectual Property Rights IPRs, WTO, TRIPS Technical Cooperation Pharmaceutical situation analysis, NMP, medicine prices, Procurement and supply management Traditional Medicine Complementary, Traditional and Herbal Medicine Quality Assurance and Safety: Blood Products and related Biologicals QAS, Norms and standards, Biological reference preparations, GMP

HSS cluster and resources | Essential health technologies (EHT)

13th International Conference of Drug Regulatory Authorities
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47th INN Consultation
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First WHO Model List of Essential Medicines for Children
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WHO Congress on Traditional Medicine
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Events archive
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	Contact information
	World Health Organization Department of Essential Medicines and Pharmaceutical Policies (HSS/EMP) 20 Avenue Appia 1211, Geneva 27 Switzerland Tel: +41 22 791 3834 Fax: +41 22 791 4743 Email: empinfo@who.int

Drug Alerts
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