Two health regulatory agencies are to be merged into a single body the government has announced.
The Medical Control Agency (MCA) and the Medical Devices Agency (MDA) will be merged into a single executive agency from April 2003. The new agency will be responsible for both the regulation of medicines and medical devices. It will also be given new arrangements for accountability and governance with the addition of non-executive members to the agency board and the appointment of a chairman.
The Health Minister, Lord Hunt, said that the move was necessary to meet the increasing convergence in the fields of pharmaceuticals and medical devices. "As technology develops, there are likely to be growing numbers of products that cross the borderline between medicines and devices. For instance some products are already a combination of drugs and devices. The boundaries will become even more blurred in the future."
