International Council for Harmonisation (ICH)
In Good Clinical Practice & ethics
The ICH is the body where drug regulators and the pharmaceutical industry agree common technical standards for medicines. Its guidelines are not laws by themselves; each region turns them into its own regulation. Because most major regulators follow ICH, a trial run to ICH standards is broadly acceptable across many countries.
Why it matters
ICH is why clinical-research skills transfer across borders. The same guideline numbers — E6 for GCP, E2A for safety reporting, E9 for statistics — are used in Europe, the US, Japan, and far beyond.
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Get your free roadmap →Educational reference only. Where regional rules differ, follow the regulation and the written procedures that apply where you work.