Official kick-off of CHESSMEN, the Joint Action to mitigate medicine’s shortages, took place in Rome

The Kick-off meeting of CHESSMEN – Coordination and Harmonisation of the Existing Systems against Shortages of Medicines, European Network – took place on the 10^th February 2023, in Rome.

The project, which has officially started on January 16^th and will be running for three years, is led by the Italian Medicines Agencies (AIFA - Agenzia Italiana del Farmaco) and benefits from the active participation of a wide consortium involving 27 organizations (22 beneficiaries and 5 entities participating as affiliated entities).

CHESSMEN is co-funded by the European Commission and envisages strengthening the coordination and harmonisation between different Member States, supporting the existing networks and initiatives already present in the field, as well as defining preventive strategies of shortages and by capitalizing and expanding on prior knowledge, such as through the creation of model initiatives and practices based on studies conducted by the European Commission and the Good Practices already in use in EU Member States.

The partnership will develop a mechanism to gather practical models for Member States while considering the findings of the Future-proofing Pharmaceutical Legislation Study on Medicine Shortages: Final Report and the Structured Dialogue on Security of Medicine Supply.