New charity aims to improve capacity for regulating animal medicine

Monday 23rd March 2020, 5:30pm

Supporting Evidence Based Interventions (SEBI) director Andy Peters attended the launch of SMArt, a new charity to improve the regulation of veterinary medicines worldwide.



Brown goat - credit The University of Edinburgh

In Low and Middle-Income countries, regulatory systems for manufacture, distribution and use of animal medicines are at varying stages of development and sophistication. 

This poses challenges to animal health initiatives in these countries.



Supporting Evidence Based Interventions (SEBI), a programme based at the University of Edinburgh’s Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, has been navigating some of these regulatory challenges. In line with this work, Prof. Andy Peters, SEBI Director, was invited to be a Board trustee of SMArt: Smart Medicines for Animals by regulatory training.

This new charity, which was launched on 11 March in London at the House of Lords, aims to improve regulatory capacity in veterinary medicines in Low and Middle-Income Countries.

SMArt is established by the UK’s Veterinary Medicines Directorate, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and has also benefited from a priming fund from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The regulatory work links with efforts by SEBI, to work with regulatory systems for improving livestock health in Sub-Saharan Africa.


Source: The University of Edinburgh