EURACTIV - Policymakers and patient groups have warned that chronic underinvestment in disease prevention is pushing EU healthcare towards a financial breaking point. Health systems are facing mounting pressure to shift resources away from treating illness towards preventing it – policymakers are seriously concerned that the current model is no...
EURACTIV - Europe's effort to secure access to essential medicines entered a new phase overnight, as EU institutions reached a provisional agreement on the Critical Medicines Act (CMA). The CMA package is deeply rooted in a 2023 Belgian initiative launched following repeated shortages that exposed Europe's pharmaceutical vulnerabilities. Read more
EU PERSPECTIVES - Recurring shortages of antibiotics, insulin and other essential medicines have pushed the lawmakers to rethink how drugs are produced and purchased. The EU has reached a political deal on the Critical Medicines Act, a law designed to boost manufacturing in Europe and make supply chains more resilient. Read more
EURACTIV - European Union negotiators return to trilogue talks on Monday, 11 May, over landmark legislation intended to secure the bloc's supply of essential medicines, with two contentious topics weighing down on a possible agreement. Read more
EU PERSPECTIVES - Europe is not short on biotech talent or science. But while the EU designs strategies, competitors are already moving faster, warns Dr Montse Daban of the Council of European BioRegions. She argues that Europe's real problem is fragmentation — and that the upcoming Biotech Act will stand or fall on execution rather than ambition. ...
EU PERSPECTIVES - The European Union may have built the world's most ambitious health data framework with the European Health Data Space, but it has overlooked one crucial element: citizens. While Brussels focuses on rules and infrastructure, Europeans are already seeking health advice from American AI platforms, filling a gap the EU has yet...
EURACTIV - More than a third of LGBTIQ+ people in the EU report discrimination, and over half face harassment, yet political backlash and budget cuts are threatening to reverse a decade of progress. Juliane Marie Neiiendam, a member of the Civil Society Organisations' Group of the EESC and Vice-President for Equality, tells Euractiv why the bloc's...
EU PERSPECTIVES - Funding that helps fight cancer, rare diseases or future health crises could lose its own programme in the next EU budget. The European Commission wants to fold it into a new competitiveness fund. MEPs warn health spending could become harder to track among defence, tech and industry — and easier to sideline when priorities clash....
EU PERSPECTIVES - Life sciences model in Europe is a broken 'societal agreement', says Tomer Feffer of the pharmaceutical company Bayer. Companies take on long-term risk and investment with no guarantee of success — only to face delayed access, price erosion and regulatory complexity once a treatment is ready. Read more
EU PERSPECTIVES - Fifty million Europeans still cannot access cancer therapies that deliver radiation directly to tumour cells. The EU is failing to change that. Radioligand therapies are currently a last resort for patients with the most advanced disease. Millions across the EU still cannot reach them. MEP Nikos Papandreou (S&D/GRC) is pushing the...