EURACTIV - Healthcare is increasingly being asked to square a difficult circle: deliver care without contributing to the environmental pressures driving disease in the first place. At the same time, systems are being pushed to shift from treatment to prevention as the basis for long-term sustainability. Read more
EU PERSPECTIVES - Europe prides itself on universal healthcare, yet patients still wait hundreds of days—sometimes even years—for access to new medicines. EU Health Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi is openly warning that without faster approvals, quicker reimbursement decisions and stronger pharmaceutical production in Europe, the continent's...
APM MARKET ACCESS - Europe is falling further behind the U.S. and risks losing ground to China in access to innovative drugs, while patients across the continent continue to face widening inequalities and longer delays to treatment, according to the latest "Patients Waiting to Access Innovative Therapies" (W.A.I.T.) Indicator published on...
EU PERSPECTIVES - The next disease outbreak could reach Europe before anyone has a name for it. Washington's withdrawal from the World Health Organization has pushed the global health system into one of its deepest crises in decades, and Brussels is moving in. The European Commission's new global health strategy stakes Europe's claim as the anchor...
EU PERSPECTIVES - Europe may be running out of time to protect one of its last global tech advantages. If we fail, biotech could become the next chapter in the story of missed opportunities: "Defence, we lost. Digital, we also lost," says MEP Stine Bosse. "The price of our patients' life-saving medicines cannot be set in the White...
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. ...