We’ve seen this film before: “When we talk about procurement in Europe, there are always countries with big economies that think — and maybe that’s true — that they are … going to get a better price if they are going on their own,” Padilla Bernáldez said. “Maybe France and Germany think they are going to calm the United States by going on their own. It doesn’t work like that.”
Muddy deals: Yannis Natsis, head of the European Social Insurance Platform, representing payers, agreed that “going it alone is no solution.” “It remains unclear what French patients and taxpayers will get in return for accepting higher prices,” he said. “Even less clear is what pharmaceutical companies are committing to in return, beyond benefiting from those higher prices.”
Yes, but: Renew MEP Stine Bosse said the new French deal has “the right instinct.” But she warned that Europe should act as one in rewarding innovation and manufacturing. Her fear is that multiple sets of rules or bilateral deals will make the EU “more vulnerable” — “we become an even less predictable place for the companies we want to invest here.” Patients will pay the price, she said, and Europe’s competitiveness will suffer. “Europe must act as one, or we will be picked off, one by one.”
It’s a common sentiment in Gastein: Valentina Strammiello from the European Patients’ Forum supported the European Commission coordinating a discussion that included patients’ voices, saying it was important that stakeholders were brought together to find a solution. “Otherwise, keeping working in isolation doesn’t lead to any solution,” she said.
Also pro-EU: Nathalie Moll, head of pharma lobby EFPIA, said that Europe risks losing out “as a whole” if countries put policies in place to attract manufacturing to their country. “The problem in Europe is … that there isn’t enough Europe. And here we need to be smart as a region in how we consider competitiveness and what tools we put in place to attract the investment, and not fragment ourselves even further than we are today.”
What now? Ministers had asked the Commission to conduct an impact assessment of Trump’s policies at their last meeting, which Health Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi handed back to member states in August — although it found it was too early to assess the impact on Europe. The ball is now in the Council’s court.