EFPIA statement on the IP Action Plan
25.11.20
EFPIA notes the publication of the EU IP Action Plan today. EFPIA Director General, Nathalie Moll said. “The COVID-19 crisis has clearly demonstrated that IP has driven and enabled the unprecedented research response leading to the availability of new treatments and vaccines for use in the fight against the pandemic.”
We welcome the commitment to launch a unified SPC grant mechanism and/or to create a unitary SPC title bringing more certainty, predictability and cost-effectiveness to everyone involved in the discovery, development and use of medicines in Europe.
Given the Commission’s commitment expressed in the EU Pharmaceutical Strategy to “support the competitiveness and innovative capacity of the EU’s pharmaceutical industry” and the aspiration to become a “global standard-setter in IP” expressed in the Action Plan, EFPIA is extremely concerned to see reference to coordinating compulsory licensing in emergency situations in Europe.
Addressing the issue, Nathalie Moll said. “As acknowledged in the IP Action Plan itself, the COVID-19 crisis has shown the resilience of the European IP system. Indeed, it has enabled unprecedented collaboration between biopharmaceutical innovators and governments, universities and other research partners to speed up progress on hundreds of potential COVID-19 treatments, diagnostics and vaccines for patients. Compulsory licensing is not an effective policy tool to create access and puts at risk any incentive to invest in medical innovation at a time when citizens across Europe, across the world, are looking to the life science community to find the answers to the coronavirus crisis and build our resilience to future outbreaks.”