Dear Reader,
As from today, the European Association of Euro-Pharmaceutical Companies (EAEPC) has changed its name to Affordable Medicines Europe. We hope you will appreciate this new name, which reflect more directly our industry’s raison d’être; to make medicines more affordable for European healthcare systems and patients. We represent more than 120 companies in 23 EU/EEA countries, responsible for more than 80% of the total parallel industry turnover of 5.5 billion Euro/year.
Every day, we identify price differences of medicines across European borders, and thanks to the EU Single Market, we can transfer those lower prices from one Member States to another. This way, we challenge pharmaceutical manufacturers’ possibility to extract the maximum price in every country – especially on patented medicines – by introducing competition. For the patient we effectively fight geo-blocking of medicines in a fully regulated and safe framework.
A series of studies have substantiated the considerable savings our industry generates via the introduction of competition. Today we have also the pleasure to publish a report summarising four new studies confirming the savings generated in 2018 in Poland, Germany, Sweden, and Denmark. We are proud to have confirmed, that as a rule of thumb; for every 1 Euro of turnover in our industry, we generate a saving of 1 Euro for the healthcare systems. Please find the report attached to this letter and all the studies on www.affordablemedicines.eu.
From Estonia to Portugal, from Norway to Bulgaria, today we are also especially proud to alleviate shortages all over Europe by importing medicines in shortage. That is also why we have been one of the initiators of the #FillTheGap campaign. You are invited to join this effort.
As an industry, we are aware of the heavy responsibility that rests on our shoulders when it comes to the parallel exports of medicines. While often accused of causing shortages, this is not our experience. In fact, more than 50% of our supply comes from the top 11 high-income EU/EEA countries. Shortages, on the contrary, are primarily caused by production issues beyond Europe’s borders. Nonetheless, as an industry we are fully committed never to export medicines in shortage and work towards a regulatory framework where all EU Member States enjoy the competitive advantages of parallel import without risk of shortages elsewhere. In short, a healthy EU eco-system for parallel distribution of medicines.
We are working in parallel for a better deal. We look forward to working with you as well.