Stimulate medicine production in Europe

The EPP Group wants Europe to be an attractive market for medicines, ensure that Europeans have access to medicines and find better solutions to the growing problem of antimicrobial resistance, where antibiotics are losing their effectiveness. These are the key messages that the EPP Group wants to push ahead of Tuesday's vote in the Environment Committee on the long-awaited pharmaceutical package. The new rules consist of two new legal acts that will replace the existing pharmaceutical legislation.

"We have significantly improved the Commission's original legislative proposals. We want to ensure that Europe remains attractive as a market for medicines, to make it mandatory to support access to medicines across the Union and to enable our healthcare systems to meet the challenges and needs of the next decade,” said the EPP Group's Pernille Weiss MEP, the Parliament's Chief Negotiator for one of the proposed laws.

"European researchers must have the best possible conditions to carry out their work, which ultimately benefits us all. For example, the new law will ensure that if a company develops a new antibiotic, it will be rewarded with 6, 9 or 12 months of market exclusivity, depending on the threat posed by the bacteria that the antimicrobial will fight. This will stimulate research in the Union and it is entirely an EPP Group success,” highlighted Tomislav Sokol MEP, the EPP Group's negotiator on the second proposed law.