EFPIA welcomes the European Commission’s Annual Growth Survey (AGS) for 2016, which has recommended that EU countries promote actively social investment more broadly, including in healthcare, as part of an approach to strengthen the recovery and foster convergence.

We are appreciative that the AGS, which kicks off the 2016 European Semester – the EU’s yearly the cycle of economic governance – confirms our view that responsible policies must be enacted to ensure healthcare and long-term care systems are financially sustainable and can provide adequate protection for all. 

The AGS rightly recognises the remarkable advances in human healthcare that have allowed people to live longer and healthier lives than at any time previously in human history. Medicines have played a central role in this achievement, and will continue to play a key role in combatting chronic diseases and extending the healthy life years of the EU’s population even further.

The Commission’s Annual Growth Survey 2016 understands the demographic challenge faced by health systems and related expenditure, calling for Member States to introduce measures to ensure a sustainable financing basis. EFPIA stresses that, in order to achieve the goal of sustainable healthcare in the face of growing pressure from an ageing population, healthcare systems in the EU must get better at measuring outcomes throughout their health systems, and at using the accumulated data for decision making and resource allocation. 

We stand ready to contribute to the ongoing debate around the European Semester and to discussions concerning the sustainability and improved effectiveness of EU health systems in delivering good health outcomes for Europe’s patients.