EGA Press Release

Thursday, 13 October 2005

GENERIC MEDICINES: INNOVATION, COMPETITION AND EQUITABLE ACCESS

“Generic medicines play an increasingly critical role in ensuring equitable access to medicinal care in the EU-25.” Greg Perry, Director General of EGA, drove this point home today at a press conference organised in Helsinki by the Finnish Generic Pharmaceutical Association (FGA). “The generic medicines industry”, he told listeners, “is fast becoming the major supplier of pharmaceuticals in the EU, providing more than 60% of medicines to countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and up to 50% in western European countries such as the UK, Denmark and Germany.”

The growing role of equivalent generic products is due in large part to their reduced price. This works effectively to make medicinal treatment affordable to a larger number of patients throughout Europe. And as Europe’s population ages, the demand for equivalent generic products used in treating chronic illness such as cancer, depression, hypertension, and high cholesterol will rise significantly as Member States struggle to control pharmaceutical spending.

But Mr Perry was keen to point out the importance of generics in healthcare. He noted that generics companies are important developers of new formulations and methods of delivery that make well-established medicines more readily available to different patient populations. Generics stimulate innovation through competition and increased consumer choice. They provide the necessary budget-headroom to pay for pharmaceutical innovation. And they increase Europe’s share in the growing global generic pharmaceutical market, thus creating new sources of enterprise and generating new employment and investment opportunities in Europe.

Expanding on the theme of innovation, Mr Perry stressed that despite greater intellectual property protection in the EU, pharmaceutical innovation continues to decline. To compete effectively in this area, Mr Perry said, the EU should focus its efforts on establishing a rival to the US National Institutes of Health, which receives some $28 billion per year from the US government. The EU must build better links between science and business; it should set up pricing structures designed to reward true innovation; and it needs to improve (not expand) the patent system by creating the Community Patent.

To maximise the generic industry’s capacity to meet the challenge of rising demand, Europe needs urgently to improve the current market conditions for generic medicines and generate a stronger public awareness of their benefits. He reminded journalists of the recommendation of the G10 High Level Group on Pharmaceuticals to “explore ways of increasing generic penetration in individual markets (including generic prescribing and dispensing).” Specific measures needed include educating and assisting doctors in prescribing generic medicines, increasing incentives to pharmacists to dispense lower-priced generics, improving consumer awareness of the quality and effectiveness of generics, and establishing generic-oriented reimbursement and health insurance systems.

In closing, Mr Perry called upon “all sectors to work together” to ensure equitable access to medications for all EU citizens. “This”, he said, “is surely a European value worth striving for.”

• Presentation Slides (PDF - 1.34Mb)

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