(a) Enforcement means action taken by an authority to protect the public from products of suspect quality, safety, and effectiveness or to assure that products are manufactured in compliance with appropriate laws, regulations, standards, and commitments made as part of the approval to market a product.

(b) Equivalence of the regulatory systems means that the systems are sufficiently comparable to assure that the process of inspection and the ensuing inspection reports will provide adequate information to determine whether respective statutory and regulatory requirements of the authorities have been fulfilled. Equivalence does not require that the respective regulatory systems have identical procedures.

(c) Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP's). [The United States has clarified its interpretation that under the MRA, paragraph (c)(1) of this section has to be understood as the U.S. definition and paragraph (c)(2) as the EC definition.]

(1) GMP's mean the requirements found in the legislations, regulations, and administrative provisions for methods to be used in, and the facilities or controls to be used for, the manufacturing, processing, packing, and/or holding of a drug to assure that such drug meets the requirements as to safety, and has the identity and strength, and meets the quality and purity characteristics that it purports or is represented to possess.

(2) GMP's are that part of quality assurance which ensures that products are consistently produced and controlled to quality standards. For the purpose of this subpart, GMP's include, therefore, the system whereby the manufacturer receives the specifications of the product and/or process from the marketing authorization/product authorization or license holder or applicant and ensures the product is made in compliance with its specifications (qualified person certification in the EC).

(d) Inspection means an onsite evaluation of a manufacturing facility to determine whether such manufacturing facility is operating in compliance with GMP's and/or commitments made as part of the approval to market a product.

(e) Inspection report means the written observations and GMP's compliance assessment completed by an authority listed in appendix B of this subpart.

(f) Regulatory system means the body of legal requirements for GMP's, inspections, and enforcements that ensure public health protection and legal authority to assure adherence to these requirements.

[63 FR 60141, Nov. 6, 1998; 64 FR 16348, Apr. 5, 1999]