So I used to work for a pharmaceutical company, and the way it was explained to be by an insider is like this:
The US doesn't allow you to market any pharmaceutical product in the US, if the product has not been reviewed by the FDA in a separate set of trials, with parameters that they themselves set up. This turned out to be a good idea with regards to Thalidomide, as the European company that made the product had not conducted a very thorough test of the effects on pregnant women (which is pretty fucked up to do for a product that is supposed to ease morning sickness). So it's less about the FDA being better at their jobs than the Euro's, and more a benefit of the fact that the US does not trust other countries to do studies properly. One of the main hurdles for European pharamceuticals is actually that getting any product FDA approved takes somewhere between 5-10 years for most people, and requires extensive documentation of the product, it's various sideeffects and even potential areas of interaction with different bodily organs. I don't know 100% what the process is for a european drug in Europe, as the EMA is such a slow agency that I finished my employment before my department even got a detailed reply from them.
So I used to work for a pharmaceutical company, and the way it was explained to be by an insider is like this:
The US doesn't allow you to market any pharmaceutical product in the US, if the product has not been reviewed by the FDA in a separate set of trials, with parameters that they themselves set up. This turned out to be a good idea with regards to Thalidomide, as the European company that made the product had not conducted a very thorough test of the effects on pregnant women (which is pretty fucked up to do for a product that is supposed to ease morning sickness). So it's less about the FDA being better at their jobs than the Euro's, and more a benefit of the fact that the US does not trust other countries to do studies properly. One of the main hurdles for European pharamceuticals is actually that getting any product FDA approved takes somewhere between 5-10 years for most people, and requires extensive documentation of the product, it's various sideeffects and even potential areas of interaction with different bodily organs. I don't know 100% what the process is for a european drug in Europe, as the EMA is such a slow agency that I finished my employment before my department even got a detailed reply from them.