In late 2022, Prescrire was a cosignatory of letters to three institutions in Europe: the Council of the European Union, the European Patent Office, and the European Parliament's Special Committee tasked with evaluating the handling of the covid­-19 pandemic.

Access to medicines: Prescrire and 18 international civil society organisations sent a joint letter to the Ministers of Health of member states of the European Union to express concerns over "transferable exclusivity vouchers" (1). The European Commission has proposed these vouchers as a means of encouraging pharmaceutical companies to develop novel antimicrobials, by prolonging companies' monopoly on their most profitable drugs, and thereby delaying the market introduction of generics. The cosignatories urged the Ministers of Health to reject such a proposal and called on the Commission to explore alternative proposals with no negative impact on patients' access to medicines.

Patents: Prescrire and the European Alliance for Responsible R&D and Affordable Medicines sent a joint letter to the European Patent Office (EPO), asking it to apply stricter patentability standards when examining drug-related patents (2). The issue could be addressed by revising the EPO's guidelines.

Pandemic management: Prescrire was a cosignatory of a letter sent to the Chair of the European Parliament's Special Committee on Covid-19. The committee's purpose is to analyse the European Union's handling of the covid-19 pandemic and to draw lessons from it in order to better combat future epidemics (3). The cosignatories pointed out that many questions need to be addressed, including:

• funding of the pharmaceutical industry's research and development (R&D), and relations with pharmaceutical companies;
• evaluation of the reliability and performance of the diagnostic medical devices brought to market in the wake of emergency authorisation measures, some of which did not even have CE marking;
• transparency and accountability in the use of public funds, as well as their oversight.

References
1- "Civil society open letter to the Council of the European Union concerning transferable exclusivity vouchers for antimicrobials" 5 December 2022: 3 pages. 
2- "Letter to the Vice President on patent granting process - European Patent Office" 14 December 2022: 2 pages. 
3- "Letter to the EP Special Committee on COVID-19 pandemic" 16 December 2022: 2 pages.

©Prescrire 1 October 2023

Source: "Prescrire a cosignatory of letters to various European institutions" Prescrire Int 2023; 32 (252): 250. Free.

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