Pharma industry wants drugs excluded from EU move to allow consumers group legal action

The pharma industry is calling for the EU to exclude medical products from a proposed new system that could allow groups of patients to seek legal redress.

The European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) is arguing that the issues surrounding medical products are too "complex" to be tackled under the proposed collective consumer redress system.

The industry body was joined by the European Consumers' Organisation (BEUC), which said that medicines should be treated differently from other consumer products.

An EU official said EFPIA, in its response to a consultation on the proposals, argued that pharmaceutical product liability claims are distinct from other types of consumer claims. They are inherently more complex, and as the individual issues have precedent over collective issues, they should be dealt with on a stand-alone basis rather than through a collective redress system.

The EU official said that with the collective redress proposals, the commission wants to stimulate more consumer action and improve access to justice in cross border cases.

"EU consumers with small and scattered claims do not go for individual court action, simply because the cost of such action is usually more than the amount of damages claimed," he said.

A total of 139 groups have responded to the EU on the collective redress proposals, and the submissions should be published this month.

The EU aims to strike the right balance between improving access to redress and avoiding unfounded claims.