On 12 November 2014, the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) together with a number of other NGOs organised the conference “Can we afford our medicines? The access to medicines crunch in Europe”. The event drew a large crowd in the European Parliament and will hopefully be a turning point in the fight for universal access to quality health treatments in Europe.

Health is a fundamental universal right and access to medicines is part of it. The EU and its Member States are committed to universal and equitable access to healthcare. Nevertheless, millions of European patients suffer from the lack of affordability of many life-saving medicines across Europe.

Participants discussed the status quo regarding access to medicines in Europe and explored policy recommendations for more affordable medicines. Possible solutions considered were: new forms of pooled procurement, price and data transparency, cost-therapeutic benefit assessment of medical products and greater generic competition. New biomedical R&D strategies that increase the social return of public investments and promote affordable health-driven innovation which “de-links” research costs from final medicine prices were also discussed at length.

Find a complete report here or watch the webstream of the event.

You can also see and download speakers’ slide presentations:

• – Access to medicines in Europe, François Berdougo (Médecins du Monde)
• – Presentation by Gonzalo Fanjul (IS Global Barcelona Institute for Global Health)
• – Access to medicines: The problem of high prices, Rohit Malpani (Médecins Sans Frontières)
• – Implementing delinkage, James Love (KEI)
• – Stopping the spiral of exorbitant prices, Teresa Leonardo Alves (La Revue Prescrire)