Freedom of Information request on the meetings of the Opioid Expert Working Group of the Commission on Human Medicines since April 2019 (FOI 22/625)
Published 27 March 2023
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FOI 22/625
19th May 2022
Dear
Thank you for your information request, dated 21st April 2022, where you asked for:
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any minutes of meetings of the Opioid Expert Working Group of the Commission on Human Medicines since April 2019 in which the impact that these warnings have had on prescribing/sales of opioids/opioid-containing medicines have been discussed;
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detail of any reviews/evaluations that have been carried out, are currently ongoing, or are planned to look into the impact of these warnings on prescribing of opioids or sales of OTC opioids since they were introduced in April 2019.
We can confirm that the requested minutes have not been published online. The procedure is that the recommendations from the EWG are reported back to CHM and a summary was recorded in the CHM website minutes of 7-8 November 2019. Link to the published website minutes: CHM 7-8 November 2019 - Final Summary Minutes.pdf - Powered by Box (top of page 4.
Regarding your second point, we can confirm that we do not hold the information that you have requested, as no further meetings of the opioids EWG have taken place since the updated warnings were included in product information. However, the MHRA regularly monitors the safety of medicines and intends to review the impact of the safety warnings in relation to the risk of addiction and dependence to opioids. As there are currently over 20 different opioids we will select a small and representative number of opioids to review in a phased approach. We are currently reviewing the benefits and risks of codeine linctus, which will include a review of sales, prescribing, and misuse over a number of years prior to labelling changes up to the current day. In line with usual practice, we will seek independent expert advice on this issue.
If you have any queries, please reply to this email.
Kind regards,
FOI Team