EMA Paediatric Committee elects Sabine Scherer as its new chair
Sabine Scherer begins her three-year mandate in September 2025
News
Human
Corporate
Paediatrics
At its July 2025 meeting, EMA’s Paediatric Committee (PDCO), elected Sabine Scherer from Germany as its new chair for a three-year mandate, beginning in September 2025.
Dr Scherer takes over from Dr Aylward, from the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA) in Ireland, who has served as the PDCO chair for the last three years.
Dr Scherer has been actively involved in various PDCO activities since 2016 when she became a committee member. She served as vice-chair of the committee from 2019 to 2022.
Dr Scherer is a paediatrician by training, serving as Senior Clinical Assessor, Deputy Head of Paediatric and Orphan Medicinal Products at the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM) since 2013.
She is currently involved in several PDCO initiatives and working groups, dealing with topics such as extrapolation, mechanism of action PDCO representatives in the European Network of Paediatric Research at EMA.
"It is a great honour to be appointed to chair EMA’s paediatric committee. My ambition is to work together with the European Medicines Regulatory Network to further advance paediatric medicine development. I look forward to building on the committee’s strong foundation which has been developed over the last two decades to accelerate progress in children’s medicine across Europe."
The main role of the PDCO is to prospectively guide sponsors or companies on how to consider a medicine’s use in children during its development. In this context, the committee assesses the content of paediatric investigation plans as well as applications for a full or partial waiver and for deferrals.
The PDCO will elect a new vice-chair at its meeting in September 2025.