Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association launches EU manifesto in each of the Ireland constituencies ahead of upcoming European Parliament Elections.
April 2024
Pharmaceutical innovators based in Ireland have said that they stand ready to work closely with European health leaders to enable faster and fairer access to life-enhancing medicines for patients in Ireland and throughout the EU.
The pledge was made by the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association (IPHA), who have four key asks for candidates contesting the upcoming EU Election:
Better Health for All Europeans: IPHA is calling for policies that prioritise access to new medicines including vaccines so that patient outcomes can be improved. Their recommendations include greater enhancement of the European Medicines Agency; ensuring a predictable and streamlined EU framework for joint clinical assessment processes; and supporting an EU Immunisation Strategy that strengthens protection
against vaccine-preventable diseases across all generations.
Creating Jobs that Matter: Given that 45,000 and 875,000 individuals are directly employed in the sector across both Ireland and Europe respectively, the industry wants to create more of these high-value and highly skilled jobs across the region.
Supporting Innovation: IPHA believes that innovation is a key factor in attracting new investments – and should be further supported by the strengthening of EU intellectual property rights for medicines innovation; and through greater pan-European and cross-border cooperation for the exchange of evidence-based information.
Encouraging Sustainability: Acknowledging that climate change is a critical challenge, IPHA is calling for continued financial and advisory support to further encourage sustainability initiatives across Ireland and Europe; as well as ensuring that Environmental Risk Assessments are implemented at production level, rather than marketing authorisation per product, so as to avoid creating barriers to access for new treatments for patients.
In recent weeks Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) adopted the largest reform of pharmaceutical legislation in over two decades. Yet despite some improvements being made to the original European Commission proposals, parliamentarians voted to reduce manufacturers’ regulatory data protection by six months – something which IPHA and the wider industry have expressed concern over. IPHA asks for this to be rectified in discussion with EU Governments in 2024 and 2025.
Oliver O’Connor, the Chief Executive of IPHA, said:
While each country in the EU organises its own health service, the EU has a key role in authorising and setting quality controls for medicines, and creating the conditions for research, development and jobs in the sector. Every region in Ireland benefits from these jobs and investment; nearly every new medicine in our health service is approved by the European Medicines Agency; and every time a medicine is dispensed, it is checked under EU systems.
The pharmaceutical industry has invested heavily in Ireland in recent years, but Europe as a whole has lost a quarter of its global pharmaceutical investment in the last 20 years. This has had a knock-on effect for R&D, innovation and, crucially, patient access to innovative medicines.
The IPHA manifesto, launched in each of the three constituencies – Midlands Northwest, South and Dublin – outlines how Ireland’s MEPs can play a role in ensuring that EU policies support the innovation and IP rights that are required for the development of new medicines by offering predictability and stability, reducing bureaucracy and showing the European Union is open for investments.
MEPs will have a crucial role to play in advancing the keys asks of the pharmaceutical industry in the next mandate of the European Parliament – particularly through the ENVI (Environment, Public Health and Food Safety) and ITRE (Industry, Research and Energy) parliamentary committees. Our industry stands ready to play its part and work further with policymakers to ensure a competitive pharmaceutical sector which serves all our patients in Ireland and across Europe.”
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Notes for Editors
About IPHA
IPHA is the representative organisation of the international research-based pharmaceutical industry in Ireland. Our 45 member companies discover and develop innovative medicines, including vaccines, for treating or curing medical conditions and diseases, improving patients’ quality of life and their life expectancy; as well as providing key non-prescription medicines for self-care.
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