EGA Press Release

Thursday, 18 November 2004

EGA AWARD 2004 GRANTED TO COMMISSIONERS
ERKKI LIIKANEN AND DAVID BYRNE FOR G10 INITIATIVE

The 2004 edition of the EGA Award has been granted jointly to Commissioners Erkki Liikanen and David Byrne for their role in establishing and supporting the G10 High Level Group on Medicines initiative.

The G10 was established by Mr Liikanen and Mr Byrne on 26 March 2001 when, in their respective capacities as EU Commissioners for Enterprise and for Public Health, they met with health and industry ministers, pharmaceutical leaders and representatives of patient groups to establish common ground for dialogue and to agree objectives to improve the competitiveness of the pharmaceutical industry and to meet Europe’s health care goals.

The European Generic medicines Association (EGA) established the award in 1997 to honour precisely such exemplary efforts in research, publications and public awareness in the field of classic medicines.

In the opinion of the EGA Executive Committee, “the G10 has fostered unparalleled dialogue between interested parties in the EU pharmaceutical health sector, established a solid foundation of priority policies for both the EU originator and generic medicines industry, and created an important model for policy discussion for future EU initiatives.”

The award was presented to Commissioner Byrne during a private ceremony in Strasbourg on 16 November, and will be handed over to Mr Liikanen at a time to be arranged in the immediate future.

Previous recipients of the EGA Award include the Portuguese Ministry of Health and INFARMED for their successful initiative to promote generic medicines in Portugal, and the World Health Organisation for their work in establishing international guidelines and standards for bio-equivalence and quality controls.

The original sculpture received by the winners of the EGA Award 2004 is comprised of two sterling silver vases representing the concept of “essentially similar”. The sculpture is the creation of the gold & silversmith Gabri Schumacher of the Netherlands, and was sponsored by EGA member company Pharmachemie/TEVA.

Further information on: The EGA Award and previous recipients G10 High Level Group on Medicines

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