• provide better guidance to industry through the availability of a scientific advice pre- submission guidance document to facilitate the submission of scientific advice requests • provide high quality scientific advice to industry within targeted timeframes, and to ensure consistency in the provision of such advice • investigate the impact of scientific advice provided on outcomes of subsequent applications submitted through the centralised procedure • provide protocol assistance for the development of orphan medicinal products • develop a scientific advice database, open to scientific committee members and EMEA, to ensure consistency in scientific documents