Public Consultation on the preliminary opinion on Access to health services in the European Union by the Expert Panel on effective ways of investing in health
The following is the response from the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) to the European Commission and its Expert Panel. EFPIA welcomes the debate on access to health services, but it is a debate that has to go beyond simply the cost of individual medicines. EFPIA’s aim is not to promote spending on health or medicines at all costs, but to work with healthcare systems to ensure that spending on medicines, and spending on healthcare as a whole is informed by patient outcomes and based on an understanding of the broader societal, economic and health benefits of biomedical research and innovative medicines. Medicines are part of the solution in addressing the real challenges faced by European healthcare systems. Europe needs outcomes driven, sustainable models of healthcare delivery that focus on improving patients’ health in a holistic and evidence-based way. Europe needs systems that allocate resources towards those interventions that deliver the best possible outcomes and away from those that don’t, these systems improve quality. This is often less expensive in the long-term and thus more sustainable than the current transaction oriented approach to healthcare. Questioning the IP incentive system, which sustains pharmaceutical innovation, is unlikely to provide a sustainable solution to access to medicines and should be measured along the cost and the health impact of not having such innovative medicines.