The Health Sciences Authority (HSA), Singapore; the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS), Republic of Korea; and the Swiss Agency for Therapeutic Products (Swissmedic), Switzerland are the first three countries to be listed as World Health Organisation (WHO)-Listed Authorities. 

A WHO-Listed Authority (WLA) is a regulatory authority or a regional regulatory system which has been documented to comply with all the indicators and requirements specified by WHO for the requested scope of listing based on an established benchmarking and performance evaluation process.

Members of the technical advisory group on WHO-Listed Authorities (TAG-WLA) met for the first time, 11 to 12 September 2023, at WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland and reached a consensus to recommend the listing of HSA, MFDS and Swissmedic as WHO-Listed Authorities, after discussing the findings of the performance evaluations of these three regulatory authorities. 

This represents a significant milestone for the Republic of Korea, Singapore and Switzerland, as the designation and public listing of MFDS, HSA and Swissmedic as WLAs, is a global recognition that these three regulatory authorities meet WHO and other internationally recognised regulatory standards and practices. 

The introduction of a framework for designating and publicly listing a regulatory authority as a WHO Listed Authority (WLA) responds to Member States’ requests to develop a transparent and evidence-based pathway for regulatory authorities operating at an advanced level of performance to be globally recognised, thereby replacing the procurement-oriented concept of stringent regulatory authorities.