Brussels wants to prioritise medicines 'Made in Europe' to avoid new shortage crises

BrusselsThe European Commission remains determined to gain strategic autonomy in all fields, including medicines. In this regard, Brussels presented a legislative proposal on Tuesday to prevent a repeat of this. a drug shortage crisis like the one the European Union experienced after Covid and, at the same time, boost the pharmaceutical industry of the community bloc against the competition posed by the United States and China. "We will reduce the risk of supply cuts and our dependence on medicines in third countries, and we will reinforce our health resilience and our drug manufacturing capacities," Teresa Ribera, vice president of the community executive, stressed in a press conference.

The most notable measure that Brussels is putting on the table is the prioritization of medicines that are manufactured within the European bloc to the detriment of imports. Thus, it proposes modifying the regulations and that public administrations take into account when purchasing medicines if they have been produced in the European Union, especially for those drugs and components that are manufactured in few countries and on which it has a high degree of dependence. It should be remembered that this type of regulation, which has a strong protectionist emphasis, is not new and will not only be applied in the pharmaceutical sector, but is also part of the context of the trade war with the US and China, and Brussels has already proposed that it be deployed in other fields that it considers strategic, such as clean technologies and especially the manufacturing of electric vehicles.

Along the same lines, the Community executive wants Member States to commit to diversifying and strengthening the resilience of the pharmaceutical sector's value chains with public purchases of medicines. Thus, administrations will also have to take into account when purchasing drugs where the components with which they are manufactured come from, rewarding those who diversify the materials and the countries of import.

Furthermore, the European Commission will also support and coordinate joint purchases of medicines between Member States that request it. The intention is to reduce the differences in access to critical medicines between EU countries and to collaborate in the event of a potential new drug shortage crisis. In fact, in the previous legislature, Brussels already launched a platform for member states could ask or share with other state administrations the medicines they were missing. In addition, Brussels promises that it will work to forge new alliances with countries and regions around the world to reduce their dependence on a single ally or a limited number of allies.

In this regard, it should be remembered that since the pandemic, the EU wants to reduce dependence in the pharmaceutical sector on China, which is the main exporter of some critical components. Thus, it aims to avoid a new drug shortage like the one suffered by the European bloc as a whole after the pandemic, when they lacked, above all, antibiotics such as amoxicillin and those specific for colds, flu or other respiratory infections, In addition to some children's medicines.