Update: UK moves to cut three months or more off time it takes to deal with drug "switching" requests
This article was originally published in SRA
Executive Summary
Improved procedures at the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency in the UK should cut around three months off the time it takes the agency to process applications from drug companies to change the legal classification status of their medicines, for example from prescription-only to pharmacy or from pharmacy to general sales1. Even greater improvements are expected for more challenging "switch" applications, some of which in the past have taken more than two years to complete2.