“Europe will be trained in the crisis and will be the sum of the solutions adopted in those crises,” wrote Jean Monnet, one of the founders of the European Union. And the coronavirus pandemic seems to once again prove that his maxim is correct.
Elizabeth Kyper, associate director of a think tank at the European Policy Center, says EU health policy has progressed at an alarming rate in the last two years.
The co-raising initiative, which was established after the 2009 swine flu outbreak, was largely ignored for the next few years, but was rediscovered as 27 member countries struggled to secure Covid-19 vaccines and treatments. ..
Since the beginning of 2020, about 36 countries, including non-EU member countries, have participated in 12 joint procurement procedures, resulting in more than 200 contracts worth € 13 billion.
“The first action of the member states was to negotiate these vaccines themselves, but they couldn’t manage to negotiate,” says Kuiper. “So they went to the European Commission and said: do it on our behalf.”
Thirty years ago, the Maastricht Treaty gave the EU “capacity” or responsibility for public health. This has proven to be a very slow process and is now being accelerated by a pandemic. “There has been a change in attitude,” says Kuiper. “There are a lot of initiatives that weren’t predicted a few years ago. It’s great.”
In November 2020, the Commission felt empowered enough to declare the European Health Union. This led to a series of programs, including the European Department of Health and Emergency Response (HERA), which began work last year. It aims to develop, create and procure health care measures before and during the health crisis, with a budget of € 6 billion over the next six years.
Recently announced plans to build a strategic stockpile of equipment and medicine to combat chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. This is a move accelerated by the war in Ukraine and the threat of Russian nuclear weapons.
We also fund decontamination equipment and a team of experts.
The Beating Cancer Plan is another first € 4 billion effort to address one of the EU’s largest murderers while advancing EU priorities such as digitization, research and innovation.
“The EU has such an ambitious, widespread, comprehensive and well-funded plan to tackle patients’ cancer journeys at every stage from prevention to quality of life to palliative care. This is my first time, “says Stella Kiriyakides. In a recent speech, a health committee member.
However, the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Engineers, a lobby group, said the plan would be combined with other reforms such as deregulation, a stable intellectual property protection framework, and simplification of the cellular and gene therapy approval process. Only warns that it will happen. This includes genetically modified organisms. It also relies heavily on the commitment of governments.
However, the industry is more excited about the Innovative Health Initiative, which was established in January as a public-private partnership to help European pharmaceutical companies compete with US competitors in the development of innovative medicines.
It aims to integrate the biopharmacy, vaccine, biotechnology, digital health and medical technology sectors with scholars, patients and the EU to combine industry-wide capabilities and expertise.
Five industry members have promised to invest a total of € 1 billion. “We will enable researchers from different disciplines and sectors to work together to solve problems that cannot be effectively addressed by themselves,” said contributor Efpia.
The European Union initiative also aims to ensure that grants under the EU’s Horizon 2020 Research Fund Plan are aligned with health needs.
“The pandemic is a coordination between European countries to protect people’s health both during the crisis and in peacetime when they can work on underlying health conditions, invest in strong health systems and train health workers. Shows the importance of this, “said the Commission. “The European Union will improve EU-level protection, prevention, preparedness and response to human health hazards.”
The new drug has long been approved for sale at the EU level through the European Medicines Agency. However, governments still determine whether the drug is being used, how much the drug is ready to pay, and the level of payment to the patient.
Currently, the new EU Health Technology Assessment Regulation wants to shift it by conducting a single EU-wide clinical assessment of efficacy, which will save money. It has the potential to speed up the rollout of new drugs.
According to Efpia, German patients wait an average of 133 days to access a new drug, compared to about 899 days in Romania. Similarly, 92% of innovative medicines are available in Germany, but can be less than 30% in smaller, former communist countries.
The industry still argues that pricing should continue to be a national issue, but some members of the European Parliament have jointly worked across the EU on all drugs to lower prices in smaller and poorer countries. I want to buy.
“We were able to find a general assessment of the value of the drug,” said Véronique Trillet-Lenoir, a French MEP and oncologist practitioner. “When negotiating as 27, you will be stronger. You can determine the redemption level for each country, even after determining a common price. The crisis opens our eyes and everyone makes us Europe. I realized how much I needed. “
However, the provision of medical care is a regional responsibility not only in the country but in many countries, and the role of the private sector is very different. Patients are wary of allowing them to share their data.
“Most health policies should be maintained nationally and locally,” says Efpia. This suggests that the EU will adopt standards for measuring health care results and quality in order to discover and disseminate best practices.
Kuiper even wonders if the ambitious and pandemic-led momentum behind EU healthcare policy will continue after the Covid-19 threat diminishes.
“It comes down to political will,” she says. “Going back to business as usual, if states like Germany and France say, well, we have economies of scale that we can think of as member states, so we don’t need a European mechanism anymore, of course. , Going back to yesterday’s approach. “
