Carrots instead of sticks for pharma companies

The EPP Group wants every European to have better and faster access to medicines, and for less money.

"We have a real problem with access to medicines in Europe. We must fix this. We do not want European doctors to struggle prescribing antibiotics for children because there are no antibiotics for children available in Europe. We have high hopes that the European Commission is to propose a realistic plan on how to solve this problem", said Peter Liese MEP and Tomislav Sokol MEP, the EPP Group's Spokesmen for health, ahead of the long-awaited law package on pharmaceutics, which the European Commission is set to present later today.

The EPP Group has been pushing the European Commission to improve its leaked draft proposal, under which, amongst others, European pharmaceutical companies would get eight years, as opposed to the current ten, to sell their branded medicines without competition.

"We must provide incentives to companies so that they invest and do research in Europe, including life-saving clinical trials. Real ground-breaking innovations such as new vaccines and cancer drugs must be rewarded better than they are rewarded now, because we simply do not have the drugs that we need in Europe for many patients. If companies meet certain criteria, for example, launching a drug in all 27 Member States, and address a previously unaddressed medical problem, they should even receive significantly more than eight years of data exclusivity. The leaked version mainly has a stick for companies that doesn’t meet additional criteria, but we are optimistic that the final proposal will also have carrots for companies that do what is expected of them", stressed Liese.

"Europe must make its own medicines, so that we can break away from our dependence on China and India. When another pandemic, biological warfare or any other health emergency hits us, European Member States must have access to most basic masks, protective equipment for doctors or paracetamol and antibiotics for patients. This is a priority", concluded Sokol.