Useful resources

A standard operating procedure (SOP) is a set of written instructions that describes the step-by-step process that must be undertaken to robustly perform the measurement of a specific property of a give sample.

A standard is a technical document designed to be used as a rule, guideline or definition. It is a consensus-built, repeatable way of doing something.

Measurement standards are created from robust SOPs, by bringing together all interested parties such as manufacturers, consumers and regulators of a particular material, product, process or service. Their development can be quite long (2-4 years). This time is needed to build a consensus method that could be accepted by all the stakeholders in the field. In fact, to reach consensus and global recognition, a standard test method has to go through multiple consultations between national stakeholders, and is typically validated via a rigorous inter-laboratory study.

For medicinal products, the European pharmacopoeia provides a compendium of monographs and general chapters for the determination of the qualitative and quantitative composition of medicines, and provision of the tests to be carried out on medicines, on the raw materials used in the production of medicines and on the intermediates of synthesis for their qualification.

For more information, see the European Pharmacopoeia on the Council of Europe website Multiple national and international standard organisation are actively working on developing standards for nanomaterials and/or focused on medical technologies. They are organised in technical committees that in some cases have established a formal liaison. The available standards and the ongoing projects can be found in their databases. METRINO partners collaborate with all the committees to develop new standard test methods for the nanomedicine community.