EU Council Meeting of Health Ministers (8 December 2017)
- 12/12/2017
- Articles
Last Friday’s EU Council meeting of Health Ministers did not produce any spectacular results (see attached “Outcome” document of 8 December 2017). The Ministers had an exchange of views regarding pharmaceutical policy in the EU. Their stated goal was to strengthen what is referred to as the “balance” in pharmaceutical systems. This fashionable term would seem to stand for the availability of “high-quality, safe, efficient and affordable” medicines which will help to achieve both the sustainability of health systems and the well-being of EU residents. The discussions thus formed the background for ongoing European Commission studies on a variety of regimes considered to create incentives for the pharmaceutical sector, including orphan medicines; pediatric applications; supplementary protection certificates; and the “Bolar” patent exemption allowing third-party research on patented inventions for regulatory purposes. Still, the discussions did not give rise to concrete steps, causing Denmark to argue for “a political document” with guidelines for “specific actions”.
The Council also tackled a number of specific subjects but, again, did not seem to do much more than taking stock of the situation. It thus addressed:
- digital health (and adopted a set of distinct conclusions on the subject);
- pediatric medicines;
- patients’ lack of access to treatment because of the export of medicines – Romania had drawn attention to this issue, but Commissioner Andriukaitis, responsible for health, reportedly indicated that he would not seek changes to the rules governing the supply of medicines to the extent these have an impact on exports;
- lack of availability of a specific medicine in Greece (Greece has fallen out with Roche over the availability of a specific oncological product);
- Valproate and teratogenic medicines;
- state of health in the EU;
- health promotion, disease prevention and non-communicable diseases; and
- antimicrobial resistance.
