European Shortages Monitoring Platform fully operational for monitoring of shortages in the EU

The European Shortages Monitoring Platform (ESMP) is now live with the full scope of functionalities. This will enable marketing authorisation holders (MAHs) and national competent authorities (NCAs) to directly report information on supply, demand and availability of nationally and centrally authorised medicines during crises and preparedness actions led by EMA’s Executive Steering Group on Shortages and Safety of Medicinal Products (MSSG).

The new release facilitates monitoring and management of critical medicines during public health emergencies and major events and in the context of preparedness activities. It follows the release of the functionalities for routine shortage reporting of centrally authorised medicines for MAHs in November 2024.

The use of the ESMP will become mandatory for MAHs and NCAs as of 2 February 2025.

The ESMP is a key requirement of EMA’s extended mandate, enhancing shortages monitoring and preparedness across the European Union (EU)/ European Economic Area (EEA).

It gives MAHs and NCAs a platform to report accurate, complete, and timely information on the supply and demand of medicines. Harmonised reporting standards in the ESMP will lead to enhanced usability of data, and this will speed up the EU/EEA’s ability to put in place coordination actions to prevent and mitigate shortages.

Publicly available information on shortages of individual medicines is accessible via the ESMP in EMA’s shortages catalogue and national shortages catalogues.

To ensure readiness to use the ESMP, EMA invites all MAHs and NCAs to attend the webinars offered and to make use of the information material available on EMA’s website.