From 1 January 2025, the Windsor Framework will simplify medicine licensing across the UK. The MHRA will issue UK-wide licenses, replacing separate ones for Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Medicines will have the same packaging across the country.
Roadblocks from the EU, and the UK government’s determination to get a ‘fair settlement’ on associate membership, are harming international collaborative research programmes and, ultimately, patients’ access to innovative treatments and devices.
The government has announced that new measures laid out in the Windsor Framework regarding the supply of medicines to Northern Ireland will commence from 1 January 2025. This extends the previous deadline for compliance, which was 31 December 2023.
The recently announced Windsor Framework seeks to restore Northern Ireland’s position as part of the UK and thereby undo the political, economic and societal challenges brought about by two years under the Northern Ireland Protocol. As over 1,700 pages of EU law will no longer apply in the region, what will be the situation for medicines supply once the deal goes through, and how will greater cooperation with the EU impact research and innovation under Horizon Europe?
