Pharma prepares for battle over EU patient information
pharmafile | October 14, 2008 | News story | Sales and Marketing |Â Â EU, patients, reformÂ
A collective of European legislators, patient groups and the pharma industry have reiterated the call for Europe’s ban on pharma communication with the public, so that companies might provide patients with ‘quality’ information about their drugs.
The High-Level Pharmaceutical Forum – a group of EU officials, member states, pharma companies and consumer groups are united in calling for change, but there remain many groups who oppose the move.
The High Level group has been working on a number of pharma and health related issues for the past three years, and has put forward its proposals for reform.
This coincides with the Commission publishing its recommendations on patient information this month, suggestions which the European Parliament will debate in the coming months.
European industry body EFPIA remains careful in its comments on the subject, and insists it only wants to inform patients, and never to advertise to them.
In response to the forum’s recommendations, President Arthur Higgins said: “We now look forward to and expect a concrete follow up of this process and urge the European Commission and Member States to rapidly implement the Forum’s Recommendations so that European patients and healthcare systems can benefit from the work that has been carried out over the past three years.”
A radical change would face stern resistance from critics, who maintain it could eventually lead to US-style of direct-to-consumer advertising.
To counter such suspicions, the High Level group has put together a detailed model of how the system would work, and has created an information package for diabetes patients as its prototype.
Many stakeholders have welcomed the basic premise of the model, but have taken issue with some of the detail of what should be included and its way of addressing patients.
Among the critics, perhaps the most vociferous is Health Action International Europe. It has condemned the High Level group as being dominated by the industry, and has dismissed the diabetes information package as incomplete and biased.
Regardless of the persuasiveness of either side, a decision will be delayed by European parliamentary elections taking place next year, as well as a set of new appointments at the Commission in November 2009.
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