Introduction: Most medicines used in the paediatric population have not been formally developed for use in this age group. Drug development itself is a very complex process, but in the case of the paediatric population, it is even more difficult to develop drugs that are also or only suitable for paediatric patients. As a result, the International Council for Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use (ICH) has issued a number of guidelines for the development of high-quality, safe and effective medicines for use in the paediatric population.
Aim: This study aims to provide an overview of the guideline ICH S11 "Nonclinical safety testing in support of the development of paediatric pharmaceuticals", the guidelines of the regulatory bodies European Medicines Agency and United States’ Food and Drug Administration, to identify the differences in recommendations for nonclinical studies in adults and paediatrics, and to review the registered drugs with paediatric indications registered with the European Medicines Agency for the time period of 1.1.2011 – 31.12.2020.
Methods: We used the official pages' databases of the agencies to review the needed documentation:
– the ICH database: ICH S11 and ICH M3(R2),
– FDA database: S11 standard,
– EMA database: S11 standard, European public assessment reports.
Results and discussion: Based on the overview of the documents used for this study, we concluded the below results:
– Requirements set out in the ICH S11 standard are synchronised by both regulatory bodies, the European Medicines Agency for the European Union and the Food and Drug Agency for the United States of America.
– There are still several key differences between requirements set out for nonclinical studies for paediatrics and adults.
– For the period of 1.1.2011 – 31.12.2020 on the European Medicines Agency there were registered 673 new medicines (with the exclusion of vaccines and cell therapy) and 230 of them had an indication for paediatric use. Out of all 230 medicines, only 14 were registered for use of the medicines only in paediatrics. The medicines with an indication for paediatrics population (also) were developed for 14 different therapeutic groups.
Conclusion: Guidelines issued by the regulatory authorities EMA and FDA indicate that the requirements for the European Union and the United States of America are synchronized with the ICH S11 guideline. There is still a large gap between the requirements for the development of non-clinical studies between the adult population and children, which can be a challenge for the pharmaceutical industry. Although many medicinal products were registered with the EMA with an indication for use (also) in the paediatric population, only a small proportion were intended for paediatric use only.
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