High Level Pharmaceutical Forum

The Pharmaceutical Forum is a high-level political platform for discussion chaired jointly by Vice-President Verheugen and Commissioner Vassiliou to improve the performance of the pharmaceutical industry in terms of its competitiveness and contribution to social and public health objectives.

Established in June 2005, the aim of the Pharma Forum is to take forward some crucial issues outstanding from the former G10 Medicines, in particular Information to Patients, Relative Effectiveness and Pricing and Reimbursement.

Participating in the Forum along Member States officials and other stakeholders, EFPIA stresses that the process was not set up to address healthcare costs or how to define innovation - but how to improve the European climate for R&D investment and the industry’s competitiveness.

In the three working groups (on Pricing & Reimbursement, Relative Effectiveness and Information to Patients), EFPIA advocates in particular that:

• Member States pricing and reimbursement actions impact competitiveness and lead to delays for patients;
• Price controls on non-reimbursed medicines should be removed;
• Industry is not pursuing US-style DTCA in Europe, but ability for industry to provide “information to patients”.