European co-operation group aims to boost medicine supply
Initiatives include orphan drug schemes and bringing innovative medicines to market
A pharma industry co-operation group promoted by the European Commission has launched a series of initiatives devoted to boosting the supply of medicines across Europe.
The Platform on Access to Medicines in Europe has been created under a Process on Corporate Responsibility in the field of Pharmaceuticals launched in 2010 by EU industry Commissioner Antonio Tajani. The European component has now gathered momentum and its sub-projects were welcomed at a steering group meeting in Ireland, held on 17 April 2013. Participants include pharma companies, regulators and health organisations.
The initiatives included an orphan drug scheme co-chaired by Belgium that has devised a way of assessing the added value of these medicines. Another, co-chaired by Italy, is assessing schemes designed to bring innovative medicines to market. Also, a Slovenia co-chaired project is examining ways of boosting medicine supplies to small European markets, such as Cyprus, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta and Slovenia.
A UK co-chaired initiative is assessing how to increase the availability of non-prescription medicines, and an initiative co-chaired by Denmark is investigating the availability of biosimilar pharmaceuticals in European national markets.
Welcoming this ‘significant progress’, a Commission memorandum stressed it wanted to ‘promote a dynamic exchange between the national authorities, the [pharma] industry and other public sector and civil society stakeholders’.