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Committing to Global Health: Balancing Access and Sustainability key to success

Date of release: Thursday 13th June

Warsaw, Poland

Summary

  • Generic, biosimilar and value added medicine manufacturers deliver increased access to medicines worldwide.
  • This access could be threatened by shortsighted cost-containment policies that make manufacturing and supply unsustainable.
  • Focused pharmaceutical policies based on healthy competition, regulatory convergence, biosimilar medicines uptake and continuous innovation will deliver efficiency for healthcare, improved access to medicines and opportunities for manufacturers to invest for the future.   

 

Global medicine manufacturers gathered in Warsaw this week to discuss the contribution of the generic, biosimilar and value added medicines to patient access and durable healthcare systems around the world.

Delivering access is at the core of the off patent sector. Generic medicines provide for 67% of dispensed medicines in Europe alone and have doubled access to medicines for patients with diabetes or cardiac conditions.

In an era of growing incidence rates of chronic diseases, global competition, and digitalisation, the sustainability of the industry cannot be left behind if the sector is to continue providing benefits for public health and the sustainability of healthcare systems.  Our call is for access-focused pharmaceutical policies, efficient international regulatory cooperation, fostering the use of biosimilar medicines, and facilitating continuous innovation for value added medicines. These are some of the pathways to deliver better healthcare globally.

Medicines for Europe President Marc-Alexander Mahl commented “We are committed to delivering better patient access to medicines. Industry and stakeholders need clear access-focused policies to ensure that the generic, biosimilar and value added medicines can continue delivering on public health. I look forward to working with the newly elected European Parliament and the incoming European Commission to achieve this.

Jim Keon, Chair of the International Generic and Biosimilar medicines Association (IGBA) commented “Developing international frameworks supporting true global development for generic and biosimilar medicines, a more competitive business environment for the off-patent sector around the globe as well as promoting the implementation of balanced, well-functioning and transparent intellectual property systems in all jurisdictions are essential to support equity of access to healthcare and the UN Member States vision of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by 2030.” 

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