EURACTIV - Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever has told policymakers he wants to restart the R&D Biopharma platform after the summer. He played down talk of crisis, a day after warning – at the anniversary of Novartis's Puurs site in Belgium – that Europe is losing ground to the United States and China. Read more

EU PERSPECTIVES - Two European Parliament committees have moved to delete the Biotech Act's most contested measure: a proposed 12-month extension of market protection for biotech medicines. Read more

EU PERSPECTIVES - Cardiovascular disease kills around 1.7 million Europeans every year, yet the EU has never had a dedicated strategy to tackle it. That is now changing with the Safe Hearts Plan. But as lawmakers backed the initiative on Wednesday, its parliamentary rapporteur warned that the final compromise fell short of her ambitions on tobacco...

EURACTIV - Dementia experts from 12 countries have signed a policy paper urging Brussels to give dementia its own framework, modelled on the €4 billion Beating Cancer Plan. Read more

EU PERSPECTIVES - Patients could pay the price as MEPs vote to delay who foots the bill for cleaning Europe's water. Parliament backed a temporary suspension of new costs for drugmakers and cosmetics firms. The vote split the assembly, pitting fears of medicine shortages against warnings that citizens will pay for pollution instead. Read more

EURACTIV - Belgium used the 16th June meeting of EU health ministers in Luxembourg to press for a united European front on medicine prices, urging member states to coordinate their response to US "most favoured nation" (MFN) pricing demands. Read more

EU PERSPECTIVES - It kills nearly ten million people a year and is expected to rise sharply in the coming decades. Cancer has for the first time been elevated to the top tier of global political priorities. G7 leaders issued an unprecedented heads-of-state declaration dedicated solely to the disease. Read more

EURACTIV - Belgium ranks among the European leaders in pharmaceutical research, patents, exports and jobs. Yet only half of the innovative medicines approved at the European level between 2021 and 2024 are available to Belgian patients, and those that do arrive take on average a year and a half. Read more

EU PERSPECTIVES - Europe fears that a new US policy aimed at lowering medicine prices for Americans could ultimately drive up costs for European healthcare systems and affect access to medicines. Brussels will now assess whether the move could delay drug launches, raise prices or push pharmaceutical investment out of the EU. Read more

EU PERSPECTIVES - Millions of medicine packs reach European pharmacies every day, on time, regardless of weather, shortages, or logistical complexity. The companies making that happen are largely invisible in EU policy discussions. The models they are paid by are 30 to 40 years out of date — and if nothing changes, you may one day walk into...