Mutual funds, trade unions and NGOs are launching a call to the Belgian government for a fairer and more transparent medicines policy at European level through the #FairFarma initiative. In an open letter, the partners list eight concrete demands.
The requirements mainly relate to the affordability and availability of medicines. The initiators ask the government to put their proposals on the agenda during the next presidency of the European Council.
“We emphasize that the pharmaceutical sector faces a challenge in international solidarity,” it said. “High drug prices are putting pressure on the affordability of healthcare, while the ban on local production of certain medicines protected by patents is depriving billions of patients of treatment.”
An important requirement is the demand to determine the price of medicines on the basis of a so-called “fair price model”, developed by the International Association of Mutual Benefit Societies (AIM). This model sets a fair price for medicines at European level while guaranteeing investment and profit margins for the sector.
Up to eighteen times cheaper
“If this model is applied in Belgium, the cost price for some cancer treatments will be up to eighteen times lower than the current price,” say the initiators. “It is time to sound the alarm loudly about the unreasonable increase in drug prices, driven by the pharmaceutical industry’s growing thirst for profit.”
The increasing opacity in price negotiations for medicines is also being denounced. For example, FairFarma demands the end of secret contracts between member states and pharmaceutical companies. In 2022, approximately twenty percent of the total budget for medicines in Belgium would go to medicines with secret contracts. In 2013 that was only two percent.
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