Veterinary products: Official Pictograms
If anything, the social media era has shown us that the language of pictures are stronger than any word. Pictograms are substituting words in products indications and instructions for the customer, bypassing the need for translations and including a bigger audience.
EMA identified the need to harmonize pictograms. Although they are not compulsory to be used, pictograms can be useful as long as the meaning and size of the graphic are clear.
If pictograms are used to substitute text on the packaging, it is compulsory to use those provided.
What they cannot be used for
In particular for target species, pictograms cannot be used to replace text such as the age, sex or size of the animal, therefore pictograms will always represent the species and not the sub-species.
Do you need to substitute you current pictograms
Although it is strongly advised to change to the new format, at the moment there is no obligation.
What if the target species is not there?
New pictograms (currently limited to the category of target species), should be proposed and endorsed within industry associations where possible and then submitted to both the CMDv and QRD secretariats for regulatory approval: CMDv@ema.europa.eu and qrd@ema.europa.eu. The newly-requested pictogram must be approved by these regulatory bodies before its use in any submission under the terms of this guidance
The full guidance is available here:
