But applicants planning a submission will still have to wait for access to the new template.
On 31st January 2017 EFSA issued revised Scientific & Technical Guidance for the preparation and presentation of a health claim application. The new guidance (see link below) replaces original guidance issued by EFSA back in 2011.
https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/efsajournal/pub/4680
As a result of this revised guidance the health claim dossier is now being re-formatted to make the health claim application easier to review and, although the application is now organised into 6 sections (previously 5), it is largely an exercise in re-formatting rather than making substantial changes to the scope of data that must be included in a submission. EFSA’s Head of Nutrition, Valeriu Curtui, is on record as stating that it should “increase the efficiency of evaluating health claim once applicants adhere to the new application format”.
However, that statement leaves some uncertainty around the timing of the implementation of this revision. Are all applicants expected to use this new format with immediate effect and if so are the necessary documents available to them? Steve Morrison of P2F Ventures Limited notes that there needs to be some consideration given to what this actually means for those companies already in the process of preparing an application.
In follow up to the release of this new EFSA guidance, NutraIngreidnets.com published an article on the industry response. You can see the feedback of Steve Morrison at P2F Ventures Limited quoted in that article as follows:
One uncertainty that emerged after the release of this new guidance was around the availability of the new health claims dossier as a template to future applicants. The format is shown in the revised guidance but is not easily accessible in a format that the applicants can use to directly build a new submission.
P2F Ventures Limited contacted EFSA directly to ask about the availability of a template for the new dossier and was told by EFSA’s Nutrition Unit “We are currently working on the template that could be ready for use by applicants. It will be released in the upcoming weeks”. So if you are in the process or preparing your submission of planning a submission in the near future it is a case of watch this space!”