Enrico Letta’s Report on the Future of the Single Market highlights the need to encourage equity of medicine access, sustainable pricing and procurement models for supply and EU-wide funds for investments in medicine manufacturing in Europe.
2024 marks the occasion of the 20th annual biosimilar medicines conference. Since its first edition, the conference has been the stage of vivid multi-stakeholders debates and discussions. Year-on-year, it has provided the opportunity to hear for EU and international experts and witness the unfolding of a regulatory-science success story and more importantly, a story where patients and healthcare professionals have observed and realised,
the significant health value smart biosimilar medicines policy can bring (over 5.8bn patient treatment days of safe clinical use) while contributing to the sustainability and resilience of healthcare system (€50bn cumulated savings since 2006, €10bn in 2023 alone).
The European pharmaceutical industry, represented by AESGP, EFPIA, and Medicines for Europe, has joined forces to enhance the content of medicinal product information leaflets, prioritising patients’ needs. These associations have put together key recommendations to improve leaflet content and accessibility, thus advancing health literacy.
European industry is making a united call to prevent the risk of de-industrialisation on our continent by relaunching Europe’s competitiveness.
The EU enters a new policy cycle at a challenging time, with technology and geopolitics acting as global disruptors, adding pressure to an already difficult economic situation. Now is the time to start building a strategic plan that unlocks the Single Market’s full potential and establishes a regulatory environment for the EU industry to remain globally competitive.
To tackle shortages, some EU Member States (France, Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Greece, Denmark and Poland) are increasingly instructing medicine manufacturers to stockpile, undermining EU solidarity and counter-intuitively exacerbating the risk of shortages. Stockpiling mandates prevent manufacturers from reallocating medicines to another EU country to solve a shortage.
Today, the European Parliament formally endorsed the deal on the revision of the European Pharmaceutical legislation. This compromise is the result of intense and lengthy debate, which aimed to improve the access, availability, and affordability of medicines and to prevent further delays of this much needed reform.
For the last three decades, the availability of cost-effective generic medicines has driven increased access to life-saving treatments for millions of patients in Europe. Today, these medicines are an integral part of the healthcare system.
Medicines for Europe members supply most of the essential prescription medicines in Europe, accounting for 67% of dispensed medicines. These medicines cover 80% of therapy areas, including for major and debilitating diseases such as cardiovascular disease, auto-immune conditions, cancer, and diabetes, among many others.
The upcoming European elections will have a significant impact on the future of health policy in Europe. EU policies and decisions can shape national health systems and influence the health and well-being of millions of citizens across Europe.
Today, the Members of the Parliament’s health committee (ENVI) adopted a compromise position on the EU Pharmaceutical legislation review (comprising of a new Pharmaceutical Directive and Regulation). The Parliament has prioritised advancing this important legislation to improve the access, availability, and affordability of medicines ahead of the EU elections in June 2024 and prevent further delays of this much needed reform.