Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products (HMPC)

HMPC prepares the Agency's opinions on herbal substances and preparations, along with information on recommended uses and safe conditions.

This work supports the harmonisation of the European market: national competent authorities are able to refer to one unique set of information on a herbal substance or preparation when evaluating marketing applications for herbal medicines.

Establishing EU standards for national procedures

To support EU Member States, HMPC focuses on two main tasks:

• establishing EU monographs covering the therapeutic uses and safe conditions of well-established and/or traditional use for herbal substances and preparations;
• drafting an EU list of herbal substances, preparations and combinations thereof for use in traditional herbal medicinal products.

Providing guidance and expert support

HMPC and its working parties and other groups also:

• prepare scientific guidelines and regulatory guidance to help companies prepare marketing authorisation and registration applications for herbal medicines;
• prepare opinions on questions referred to EMA by the national competent authorities regarding the period and evidence of safe use for traditional herbal medicinal products;
• cooperate with the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and Healthcare on European Pharmacopoeia standards and EMA guidance on the quality of herbal medicines;
• coordinate with other scientific committees at the Agency on the regulation and safe use of herbal medicines;
• provide scientific and regulatory support to companies researching and developing herbal medicines;
• interact with interested parties;
• provide advice and training to herbal assessors of national competent authorities;
• cooperate with international partners on the harmonisation of regulatory requirements.

The Committee was established in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 726/2004 and the Herbal Directive, which introduced a simplified registration procedure for traditional herbal medicinal products in EU Member States. 

HMPC is composed of scientific experts in the field of herbal medicines. 

It replaced the Committee for Proprietary Medicinal Products' Working Party on Herbal Medicinal Products in September 2004. 

For full details, see the HMPC rules of procedure and work plan.

The European Medicines Agency's (EMA) Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products (HMPC) meets once every two months. 

EMA publishes the agendas, minutes and meeting reports of its plenary meetings. 

HMPC meeting reports summarise the main outcomes of its meetings. 

EMA has been publishing the agendas and minutes of HMPC plenaries since its September 2013 meeting. 

Before this, EMA only published meeting reports for HMPC.