Make medicines more accessible and affordable for every European.
Increase investment in the development of medicines against rare
and chronic diseases as well as against paediatric cancers. Learn
the lessons from the COVID pandemic and use more European joint
procurement. Reduce anti-microbial resistance. Bring the
production of medicines back to Europe. These are the EPP
Group's main goals in the so-called Pharmaceutical
Strategy, which is expected to be adopted in a vote
today in the European Parliament's Environment Committee.
"There are several reasons why not every European citizen has
access to affordable medicines now. Delays in the inclusion of
drugs into national pricing and reimbursement policies,
commercial factors and fragility of the global supply chain",
explained the EPP Group's Dolors Montserrat MEP, the Parliament's
main negotiator of the file.
"We must change that. We want every patient in the European Union
to have access to affordable and innovative medicines. We must
align national agencies’ price setting with the approval time of
the European Medicines Agency, suggesting a reasonable time
limit", she added.
For the EPP Group, it is also important to draw certain lessons
from the COVID pandemic for the pharma industry. "We want to
promote European joint procurement, as was done for COVID-19
vaccines, for very rare diseases, antimicrobial resistance and
paediatric cancers. Member States, when deciding which medicine
to authorise for national use and at what price, should also
consider whether the product has been produced completely or
partially in Europe and if the medicine has a high value for the
population, like, for instance, antibiotics. This is how we can
reduce our dependency on third countries and avoid a shortage of
medicines all together, while fostering a competitive,
strategically autonomous European pharma industry", concluded
Montserrat.
The European Commission is expected to come forward with the
so-called Pharmaceutical Strategy, new rules on how drugs are
made, approved and sold in the EU, at the beginning of 2022. The
Report details Parliament's demands for the strategy.
