Who ‘owns’ the health agenda?
Sitting listening to the EU’s enterprise commissioner holding forth at the European Parliament’s environmental committee on the subject of regulating medicines, I was prompted to wonder how the status...
View ArticleA severe case of ‘Spamiflu’
A new phenomenon is sweeping the Internet like a virus – they call it Spamiflu Tamiflu has now overtaken Viagra as the drug most frequently advertised in spam emails. Regulators fear criminals are...
View ArticleMedicines policy moves to Health Commissioner
Shock! Horror! NGOs have gotten their way despite fierce resistance from the pharma industry Pharmaceutical policy will move to the European Commission’s health and consumer wing, DG Sanco, as part of...
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Want to buy cheap drugs?
Sale of the century: EU governments are selling off swine flu vaccines Having grossly overestimated the demand for vaccines against the once-dreaded H1N1 virus, health ministers across Western Europe...
View ArticleCan we afford the fruits of innovation?
A troubling thought: are the pro-innovation policy wonks talking to the cost-containment pencil pushers? Doing the rounds of innovation conferences in Brussels, it’s clear that a huge section of the...
View ArticleGreek patients pleading for aspirin
Chronic drug shortages in Greece have left thousands of patients without medicines and paralysed the drug supply chain. The impact of the ongoing financial crisis in Europe is having a deep impact on...
View Article‘Patient information’: a case study in EU bureacracy
Three years after it was proposed the EU Information to Patients Directive is in limbo European health ministers have poured cold water on a long-standing EU proposal to allow pharmaceutical companies...
View ArticleGreek doctors call emergency ‘solidarity summit’
Doctors from across Europe are gathering in Athens on Saturday for an emergency meeting amid fears that the Greek health system is going into meltdown. The hastily-arranged medical summit, called by...
View ArticleEuropean Medicines Agency: a watchdog under fire
Amid resignations, political spats and question marks over its budget, there’s a new broom at the EU’s powerful medicines authority Pity Guido Rasi. Not for his €200 salary, the generous perks or the...
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