Generic Drug Manufacturers: 'EU must ensure fair access'

"We support the reform on condition that can truly guarantee equitable access to medicines for all Europeans and that contributes to increasing security of the supply of medicines. We will oppose attempts to extend incentives and property rights intellectual, which already guarantee the longest protection monopolistic in the world. We urge the Council, the Parliament and the Commission to increase the harmonisation of rules for a better access and security of supply for the patients in all EU Member States". This is the position of Medicines for Europe, the European association of companies producers of generic-equivalents, biosimilars and value added medicines, which comments with a note on the agreement reached yesterday in Council on the content of the EU pharmaceutical package, which now reaches the final stage of negotiations between the Commission, Council and Parliament. The association makes its recommendations known: the clause of re-purposing should be extended to ensure greater investments in important public health needs such as antimicrobial resistance and the future cardiovascular strategy; Bolar exemption needs to be harmonised to encourage development of active pharmaceutical ingredients in Europe and to place an end to unnecessary and anti-competitive delays in competition generic or biosimilar drugs; measures should be taken regulations aimed at increasing European competitiveness at the global; alignment of the pharmaceutical package to the objectives of the mandate extension legislation EMA will facilitate the use of digital tools to prevent and mitigate medicine shortages.