Ad-hoc meeting with Industry representatives

The ad hoc meeting with industry representatives (GMO applicants) was organized by EFSA 7-8th of October 2024; the meeting was the second one for 2024. The meeting was held on hybrid mode.

The following points were discussed:

i.    Administrative and procedural issues. EFSA provided an overview of the progress on the risk assessment of applications and of the renewals in the GMO area, and informed that a new contractor is supporting EFSA and the GMO Panel in the preparatory work for the assessment of literature searches. EFSA provided clarifications on the studies of GM plants’ applications that need to be notified by the applicant, and on the best practice regarding the submission of confidentiality requests, to speed up the confidentiality assessment process.

ii.    Protein safety and preDQ software. EFSA and CropLife Europe (CLE) gave presentations on the topic of protein safety risk assessment and continued the discussions initiated in the past meetings. EFSA informed that once endorsed by the GMO Panel, the opinion will go for public consultation. CLE gave a presentation on the preDQ software and the topic was discussed. Comments received in this meeting will be considered in future new versions, Moreover, EFSA suggested to have a dedicated meeting on the tool in the future, if needed.

iii.    Bioinformatics and TOX 90-day data submission proposal. The proposed submission data structures were discussed with applicants. Comments were invited on the TOX 90-day proposal. The submission proposals will be published as Annexes to the next update of the Administrative submission guidance.

iv.    RNAi update. EFSA provided an update of the ongoing activities. The draft guidance document will be shared with applicants before publication. 

The next meeting with the food and feed business representatives will be held in March 2025 remotely. We wish to thank all participants for the constructive discussions and excellent collaboration, and we are looking forward to meeting everyone again at our next meeting.