2023-04-26 09:50:00
The EU Commission is learning lessons from Corona and wants to create the possibility of boosting the production of medicines in exceptional cases – regardless of patents.
Brussels/Vienna. Which medicines are available where at what price – and for how long? At the latest since the shortages of fever reducers, antidepressants and antibiotics caused by the corona pandemic, these questions are not only being debated in a small circle of health politicians, but are also a hot topic in the general public. Also as a result of the experiences made in the course of the epidemic, the EU Commission will present the largest revision of the current European pharmaceutical regulations in two decades on Tuesday. The Brussels authority’s proposals are intended to combine the existing rules into a regulation and a directive – and their explosiveness can be judged by the fact that the key points leaked in the run-up to the presentation caused controversy.
Based on the latest information, what core elements should the Commission proposal contain? A particularly controversial proposal concerns the handling of patent rights in exceptional situations. According to reports, the Brussels authority aims to weaken intellectual property protection in crises such as the corona pandemic and to oblige pharmaceutical companies to pass on the recipes for necessary medicines (such as vaccines) in order to boost production. Such rules for emergencies exist in many places at national level – for example in Israel and Canada – but not in the EU rulebook. This initiative is a red rag for pharmaceutical companies, which bring in their high research costs via protection periods for their intellectual property. The CEO of the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis, Vas Narasimhan, warned on Tuesday against damaging the “ecosystem” for medicines in Europe and the competitiveness of the EU. On the contrary, if the EU wants to ensure that medicines are available in crisis situations, it must strengthen intellectual property rights.
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