The Executive Committee of Medicines for Europe, an industry organization representing generics and biosimilars manufactures in Europe, has issued an open letter to European Union (EU) health ministers, the EU Commissioner of Health and Food Safety and other EU Commissioners to address inflation in pharmaceutical manufacturing.

Currently, the generics industry supplies around 70% of prescription drugs at low cost to EU healthcare systems. In this sense, it has played an essential role in the sustainability of public health in member countries.

However, the circumstances of the last year with the war in Ukraine, the average increase in inflation above 7%, energy costs and problems related to supply and transport make it difficult to continue with production in the usual scenario of strict price regulation and downward bidding.

The Executive Committee of Medicines for Europa has addressed a series of recommendations that go through, among other things, recognizing the prescription medicines sector as critical in EU, reducing the complexity and cost of regulatory compliance and reforming of procurement and pricing models.

An agreement is necessary because the recent COVID crisis has reaffirmed that generics are the cornerstone of European health medicines. For this reason, it is essential that the right conditions exist so that they can be produced in Europe. The objective of all the agents involved must be to offer the best and most affordable solutions to patients.

Regarding this topic, the main European producers of generics – such as Polpharma Group, parent company of Farmaprojects – have always shown total alignment with the pharmaceutical and industrial strategy of the EU, which must be maintained in the face of complicated situations such as the current one.