Ongoing efforts in the EU to expand the availability of real-world data (RWD) sources for regulators have resulted in a growing focus on data from social media platforms.
EU Regulators Eye Social Media For Real-World Data Insights
As drug companies continue to explore the use of social media data to support their submissions, a panel of EU regulators have drawn up a seven-point action plan to help evaluate the usefulness and impact of such data in regulatory decision-making.

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The European Medicines Agency has recommended five drugs for EU-wide approval , including Averoa’s Xoanacyl for concomitant hyperphosphatemia. Two companies have withdrawn their marketing authorization applications.
Eli Lilly’ will request a re-examination after the European Medicines Agency declined to recommend its Alzheimer’s disease drug Kisunla for EU approval.
The new global GCP guideline, ICH E6(R3), enables researchers and clinical trial administrators to tailor their documentation processes, but also opens the door for more scrutiny during GCP inspections.
A German ordinance implementing the EU Health Technology Assessment Regulation offers little clarity on how far joint clinical assessment reports should be considered by national authorities.
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Japan adds four new pediatric vaccines, including for MMRV and norovirus, to a list of priority vaccines eligible for assistance in regulatory processing.
Payers and health technology assessment bodies in the Netherlands, Germany and Italy are either unwilling to use real-world data in assessments or cannot due to their existing frameworks, say representatives from Gilead Sciences and Autolus Therapeutics.
The Clinical Trials Regulation was “supposed to harmonize” requirements in the EU, but instead it is giving some countries the chance to get ahead by offering faster approval timelines, notes Telethon’s head of regulatory affairs.