The World Health Organization

Report of the Jury

The Board of the EGA, acting as the Jury for the EGA Award 1999, considered that:

• generic medicines are the classic medicines available for therapeutic use on a global scale;
• use of generic medicines on a global scale creates the greatest possible economies in terms of scale and scope;
• these economies of scale and scope create the most beneficial value-for-money reaction, not only for the industry, but more especially for the societies whose citizens rely on these classic medicines of undisputed quality;
• taking away the barriers which stand in the way of the global availability of these classic medicines of undisputed quality is a general issue and of vital importance to physicians, pharmacists, payors and patients worldwide, if pharmacotherapy with generic medicines is to be applied as the least expensive of all known and scientifically proven therapies.

The World Health Organization recognizes this need and has pursued a policy geared towards this very aim ever since its Health for All Programme was initiated in the late 1980s.

In the past five years the WHO has supported:

• provisions which permit, encourage, or require generic prescription and substitution;
• requirements that labels and drug information should contain generic names;
• the required use of generic names in clinical manuals and drug bulletins;
• the required use of generic names in the education and training of all health professionals.

These points are explicitly stated in the WHO’s Action Programme on Essential Drugs of 23 February 1996.

In the opinion of the jury, Dr Juhana Idänpään-Heikkilä, in his role as senior officer and ambassador for the WHO, has been particularly supportive of the above-mentioned issues. He has recognized that the generic medicines industry is an indispensable partner in the International Committee for Harmonization. This led to the representing body of the generic medicines industry becoming a member of the ICH Working Groups, as well as its participation in the WHO Consultation Working Group on essential drugs, multisource drugs and starting materials.

In the light of the above, the jury decided during its meeting of 1 December 1998 in Amsterdam to present its EGA Annual Award 1999 to the World Health Organization.

As a mark of honour, the jury would like to present the award to the honourable Dr. Idänpään-Heikkilä as the personification of all the initiatives and work done by the WHO in this respect.

Having announced the decision of the 1999 jury, the EGA as an association would like to present the prize to Dr Idänpään-Heikkilä during the annual EGA Conference in Budapest on 25 March 1999.

The prize will be handed over by the winner of the 1998 EGA Award, the Dutch Institute for Effective Use of Medication, represented by its chairperson, Mrs Y. van Remmerden-Gleis.

Signed:

B.Th. Visser
President of the EGA

Greg Perry
Director fo the EGA