The Italian Medicines Agency and the National Anti-Doping Organisation, NADO Italia, have signed a memorandum of understanding aimed at providing athletes and support staff with accessible and immediate information on medicines containing substances prohibited under the List of Prohibited Substances and Methods adopted by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA List).

Pursuant to the memorandum of understanding, AIFA is making information extracted from its database available to NADO, the authority responsible for anti-doping in Italy within the national sports system, for the creation of a specific platform. AIFA will also regularly share updates to the database with NADO.

“It is in AIFA's interest to promote the correct, responsible, and informed use of medicines, including among athletes participating in sports competitions,” says Isabella Marta, head of AIFA's Medicines Authorisation Division. "With this in mind, we are pleased to make the Agency's drug database available to NADO and to provide the requested information and updates for the benefit of athletes and their teams, who will be able to manage their health more consciously in relation to medicines containing active ingredients with doping effects. This is an issue that we know is very sensitive and important, especially during major international events such as the Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games currently taking place in Milan Cortina."

Every year, AIFA provides the Ministry of Health with a list of medicines authorised in Italy that contain substances prohibited for doping, on the basis of which a ministerial decree is drawn up to update the list of prohibited substances and medicines, in accordance with the WADA List. The ‘AIFA medicines’ database also includes, for the affected medicines, the warning "contains doping substances" and the doping pictogram (also present on the label).

“The Memorandum signed with AIFA,” says Dr. Alessia Di Gianfrancesco, general director of NADO Italia, “emphasises NADO Italia's ongoing commitment to providing information to protect clean athletes and prevent unintentional doping, by providing an immediate tool for checking for the presence of substances prohibited in sport in medicines marketed in Italy.”