The European Medicines Agency looks to the future At the end of 2010, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) published a road map that laid out a ‘strategic vision for the operation of the European Medicines Agency’ from 2011 to 2015.1 According to this document, there are three strategic areas where much of their effort will be spent in the coming years: addressing public health needs, facilitating access to medicines, and optimizing the safe and rational use of medicines. As a follow-up to the road map, the EMA has published a document explaining how it will go about achieving its goals in each of the strategic areas mentioned above.2 Interestingly, there is the candid recognition that we are living through a difficult economic situation, and this will have an impact on the availability of resources and the achievement of the stated goals. Below, I discuss a couple of aspects that most caught my eye.