EMA has agreed working arrangements with the Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA) to strengthen its cooperation with the recently established body. The arrangements cover the exchange of information and access to IT systems and tools in areas of shared interest.
 
The non-binding agreement states that EMA and HERA will organize joint meetings, provide access to information systems and other IT tools, and exchange scientific expertise related to cross-border threats.
 
HERA and EMA have identified five specific areas of cooperation: assessment of cross-border threats to medical countermeasures; identification of medical countermeasures; identification of vulnerabilities in the supply of medical countermeasures; coordination on medical countermeasures in emergencies; and reinforcing the global health emergency preparedness and response architecture.
 
The collaborators have provided information on how they will work together in each area, explaining, for example, that EMA will help HERA identify risks of shortages for specific medical countermeasures and that HERA aims to ensure “the interoperability of its Intelligence Gathering Platform with existing or future EMA IT systems.”... [EMA]