As the European Commission prepares to adopt a proposal for a Critical Medicines Act on Tuesday 11 March, ten EU countries have asked the Commission to take into account the recommendations of the Critical Medicines Alliance (see EUROPE 13595/9).
The ‘manifesto’ from these ten countries (Belgium, Cyprus, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Romania and Spain) calls on the European Commission to draw up a list of industrially vulnerable medicines as early as 2025, “in order to prioritise support and strengthen EU-based manufacturing and efforts of diversification for the most critical medicines”. According to these countries, carrying out a vulnerability assessment should make it possible to “prioritise our efforts and define the relevant scope for the proposed actions“.
These countries have also asked the Commission to put in place “a specific investment plan” with strong cooperation and coordination at EU level to strengthen European production capacity for critical medicines, including active ingredients. The Commission should therefore, by adjusting its current framework for State aid and EU funding where necessary, “ensure future instruments fully meet this need of ambitious and targeted financial support”, according to the manifesto.
They call for exploring the use of joint procurement. When it comes to public procurement, they put forward criteria of security of supply, resilience (which in fact measures European industrial presence) and environmental quality, and propose issuing calls for tender with multiple winners.
MEP Tilly Metz (Greens/EFA, Luxembourgish) welcomes the progress made on critical medicines but regrets the lack of an impact assessment accompanying the Commission’s proposal. In her view, financial support for the pharmaceutical industry should be combined with transparency requirements. The supply of medicines should not be dictated solely by price, but also by criteria such as security of supply and environmental impact, according to the MEP.
Link to the ten-country manifesto: https://aeur.eu/f/ftw (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)