A More Powerful European Medicines Agency To Better Protect Consumers In Crisis Times

The COVID-19 crisis impacts people’s lives in many ways. A key lesson of this pandemic is that the EU needs stronger mechanisms to respond more effectively to cross-border/pan European health threats. A stronger policy framework will help prevent future public health threats, reduce their negative impact on people’s health by ensuring that they have access to critical medicines in a time-fashion and ease economic disruptions that lead to job losses.

Reinforcing the role of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in crisis preparedness and management is encouraging. we support the initiative to consolidate the ad hoc mechanisms that were established during the COVID-19 pandemic such as the Steering Group on medicine shortages. However, there are still important shortcomings in the text. 

This is how the proposed Regulation can better contribute to ensuring the availability of medicines and medical devices that are necessary to address a public health crisis or major event:

• Effectively monitor and mitigate the shortage of medicines and medical devices.

• Improve transparency and coordination around the development of medicinal products for public health emergencies.