Time For A New Deal For Medicine; EPHA Forum Challenges Status Quo On Medicines Policy

The debate around drug price transparency was a highlight of the 4th Forum on Access to Medicines in Europe, hosted by the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA) Thursday. The forum focused its discussions around cancer therapies, medicines shortages, and transparency around R&D costs.

“It is high time to challenge the status quo on medicines policy – it can no longer be dismissed as business as usual,” said Fiona Godfrey, secretary-general of the EPHA, in an opening statement at the day-long event.

The high costs of cancer treatment was singled out as a topic of particular interest, guiding discussions in the first plenary session. Speakers noted that new cancer treatments often show low evidence of substantial clinical benefit as compared to drugs already on the market, but are still priced at exorbitant prices.

“Cancer drugs should be the cheapest. I don’t understand how we pay so much when we don’t know what we are buying. We need a dialogue to find a better balance between commercial and non-commercial research,” said Denis Lacombe, director-general of the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer.

The session also shed light on the inequity in cancer treatment between Eastern and Western Europe, challenges in scaling up innovative products, and the opacity around cancer R&D, observers noted.

Bjørn-Inge Larsen speaking at the 4th EPHA Forum on Access to Medicines in Europe.

Along with other figures that have been driving the transparency agenda in global health policy-making, Bjørn-Inge Larsen, secretary-general of Norway’s Ministry of Health and Care Services, challenged policy-makers to tackle the transparency issue and growing concerns about rising drug prices.

“We need to find balance between new technology and costs…It’s good that so many new medicines are available, but we need to make sure patients can benefit from them” said Bjørn-Inge Larsen in a keynote speech.

Inge Larsen highlighted the importance of drug price transparency and the challenges associated, noting that “we need to show how we are spending [taxpayers’] money, and currently politicians cannot explain prices and availability to patients.” He added that Norway was in discussions with Denmark and Iceland to jointly negotiate access to innovative, but expensive new therapies.

Image Credits: Twitter: @EPHA_EU.

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