The British Pharmacopoeia (BP) is the official collection of standards for UK medicinal products and pharmaceutical substances. It is produced by the British Pharmacopoeia Commission Secretariat of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, in accordance with regulation 317(1) of the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 and makes an important contribution to public health by setting publicly available standards for the quality of medicines.

The BP is published annually with three in-year updates, currently in both hardcopy and electronic formats; the latter being available as a download product as well as an online publication accessed via a single-user license or a multi-user license arrangement.

The Agency requires the appointment of a service provider to be responsible for all Publishing activities as well as Printing, Distribution, Marketing and Selling of the BP and BAN publications. A core part of the requirement is the provision and maintenance of a website, which operates as a portal to access the electronic formats of the BP, a source of added value material and a sales platform for the BP chemical reference standards, orders for which are fulfilled by the Agency. The to the current website is https://www.pharmacopoeia.com/, and this web address is owned by the Agency.

The Agency expects to publish this tender late January 2022 for the award of a concession contract to one service provider to provide these services as a concessionaire; collaborations with other organisations to bring together the range of expertise (sub-contracting arrangements) would be acceptable, with the service provider ensuring effective and seamless delivery. The appointed concessionaire shall retain the revenue from the service/sales as its fees minus the payment of agreed royalty share to the Agency. The concessionaire shall have exclusivity on the sales of the BP and BAN during the term of the contract. Pricing strategies shall be reviewed and agreed by both parties.

This contracting approach is the same as the current set-up and the Agency will share some of its historic sales data and trends at its supplier event and in the tender documentation. We expect to award the contract in April 2022 and agree a contract with mobilisation in September 2022 to facilitate sufficient lead time for implementation and the publication of the BP 2024 in August 2023.

We will be holding a supplier engagement event on 18th January 2022 13.30 – 15.30 via a MS Teams video conference to discuss with potential suppliers the requirement and service expectations, and further considerations for the future contract. We will also allow time for questions and answers. If interested in attending or if you have a question you would specifically like to be addressed in session, please email purchasing@mhra.gov.uk with your details (quoting BP Event).