In June 2020, the European Commission launched a new pharmaceutical strategy for Europe ‘Pharmaceuticals – safe and affordable medicines’, aimed to improve and accelerate patients’ access to safe and affordable medicines and to support innovation in the EU pharmaceutical industry, addressing mainly:
- the life cycle of medicines from R&D to authorisation and patient access
- how to put scientific and technological advances into practice
- how to fill market gaps (e.g. new antimicrobials)
- lessons learnt from COVID-19 on how to better prepare for future pandemics
More information about the initiative is available at this link.
The Roadmap has been open for feedback until 7 July to collect views on aspects of EU laws and policies before finalizing the proposal.
Consorzio per Valutazioni Biologiche e Farmacologiche as EPTRI coordinator provided its comments underlining the necessity to stress new adequate health policies and actions promoting the development and the access to safe and efficacious medicines specific for children. In fact, specific efforts should be made to guarantee innovative and high-quality health care, available for all citizens with particular attention for the groups, e.g. paediatric and rare diseases populations, often excluded by last advancements in the health field.It is possible to read the complete document at this link.
Moreover, the Roadmap has been open to public consultation until 15 September 2020 and EPTRI contributed as well, also preparing a position paper which turn on a spotlight on the huge impact of the shortage of medicines, also caused by the pandemic situation, on the paediatric situation exacerbating the delays in having access to cures.
The publication of an EC communication on the strategy is planned by the end of 2020.