The Medicines and products Healthcare Regulatory Agency has published its annual report for 2022-23 which reveals it brought 729 new generic medicines to the UK market and made progress in ensuring the public’s safety.

The 143-page report looks back on a year MHRA chief executive June Raine described as “a landmark in our evolution as an agency.” The MHRA said it “had much to celebrate,” achieving a “positive shift in how we engage and involve patients” and working “closely with partners to ensure the supply of vital medicinal products.”

It said it had approved over 100,000 drug notifications that enabled patients to access essential medicines which were not available in the UK and inspected over 700 factories, labs and trial sites.

The MHRA also said it had been “instrumental in mitigating the impact of drug shortages” such as antibiotics during the Strep A infection outbreak and had protected the public from criminal activity through its criminal enforcement unit.

The report said its Unit had taken down 8,000 illegally trading web pages and removed nearly seven million doses of illegally traded medicines from circulation. The MHRA claimed its work led to successful prosecutions and custodial sentences of 216 months as well as “the denial of £850,000 in criminal profits.”

The report also hailed its new approach to safety on sodium valproate, marked by the use of data to get a clearer idea of the “established and evolving risks” and patient evidence “to inform the approach and improve risk materials.”

Another example it gave of its improved approach to safety was its decision to increase patient and stakeholder involvement in 2023-24 in reviewing the use of teratogen during pregnancy “to better understand stakeholder perspectives and choices.”

The MHRA said it recalled a range of faulty medicinal products including insulin pumps, mexiletine hydrochloride and pholcodine, naloxone and contaminated perfusion solutions.

“We continue to protect public health by monitoring and responding to important patient safety issues related to the use of medicines and by prompt action to deal with faulty medicinal products and combat trade in non-compliant and illegal health products,” it said.