MEMBER NEWS - 31.08.2017

Our Belgian member Test Achats/Aankoop is stepping up its fight for affordable drugs. Together with other organisations including Doctors of the World, Test Achats/Aankoop met yesterday Belgian Minister of Health Maggie De Block. The delegation handed the Minister a petition signed by nearly 43,000 people calling for cheaper medicine prices.

Over recent years, price tags for new drugs have become unaffordable. Treatment for hepatitis C can cost up to €43,000, while one year of treatment for breast cancer is over €100,000. If new therapies can be expensive to fund, in some cases they have rather become a money maker for pharma companies. And some new medicines might not be as innovative as they are advertised; they sometimes are just another version of an existing treatment.

Many other European countries experience the same trend of skyrocketing drug prices. It is high time Member States join their forces to ask for transparent and cheaper drug prices.

Watch this new video by Test-Achats/Aankoop:

See TA’s press release in French and Dutch.