Access to medicines

• Published in: European journal of hospital pharmacy. Science and practice Vol. 30; no. 5; pp. 257 - 260
• Main Authors: Miljković, Nenad, Makridaki, Despina, Kohl, Stephanie
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England British Medical Journal Publishing Group 01.09.2023; BMJ Publishing Group LTD; BMJ Publishing Group
• Subjects: Cancer; Collaboration; Cooperation; Cost control; EAHP position paper; economics; education; Health care expenditures; Health technology assessment; hospital; Hospitals; Medical personnel; Medicine; Patients; pharmaceutical; Pharmaceuticals; Pharmacists; pharmacy; pharmacy service; Prevention; Prices; Professionals; Public health; Reimbursement; Risk assessment; safety; Shortages; Supply chains; Europe; economics; pharmaceutical; pharmacy service; education; safety; pharmacy; hospital; public health
• ISSN: 2047-9956; 2047-9964
• DOI: 10.1136/ejhpharm-2021-002974

Innovative drugs, in particular, place an additional strain on already tight hospital budgets. Besides the constraints faced by public health budgets, there are other barriers to treatment access. In its 2016 Conclusions, the Council of the European Union (EU) highlighted the problems that innovative medicinal products present to individual patients and public health systems alike.5 In March 2017, the European Parliament called for national and EU-wide measures to guarantee the right of patients to universal, affordable, effective, safe and timely access to essential and innovative therapies.6 Since then, different movements—such as the Beneluxa initiative and the Valetta Declaration—have been bringing together countries interested in jointly tackling the issue of unsustainable prices by aiming to improve patient access to innovative medicine, cost containment and pushing for improved price transparency. Producers do not always have the manufacturing capacity to meet the potential need, and vulnerability to the supply chain is added if alternative suppliers drop out of the market due to loss of tender. [...]while procurement policies can, on the one hand, have the capability to enable better treatment access, they can, on the other hand, also be perceived as a treatment barrier, especially when their application leads to market concentration and dependency on one single supplier. After years of spearheading the awareness-raising discussion about the influence that medicines shortages have on both patient care and the work of hospital pharmacists, the problem has gained recognition and efforts have finally shifted towards finding preventative and mitigating actions that could help with keeping the growing negative impact of medicines shortages at bay.