BEUC NEWS - 03.03.2016

Consumers should be able to get the right drugs at the right price and the right time. This is the message from 24 BEUC member associations¹ who have co-signed a joint declaration together with other public health and healthcare professional organisations.

Access to medicines is no longer a problem only for developing countries. Many consumers across the EU face difficulties in getting the drugs they need because of overpriced medicines and shortages of supply.

To ensure drugs are available and affordable, consumer and health organisations ask for:

• Affordable prices now;
•  the end of pharmaceutical monopolies including more competition from generic medicines;
• full transparency into research and development (R&D) and how prices for medicines are set;
• A needs-driven pharmaceutical R&D.

More info:

Joint Declaration
BEUC Factsheet on access to medicines, 2015.
BEUC position paper, 2015
 

Find more Med facts about access to medicines on our dedicated page.

¹ The 24 Co-signing BEUC members are UFC-Que Choisir (France), Consumentenbond (Netherlands), Danish Consumer Council, Altroconsumo (Italy), Consumatori Italiani per l’Europa - CIE (Italy), ), EKPIZO (Greece), Consumers’ Protection Centre - KEPKA (Greece), Consumers’ Organisation of Macedonia – OPM, Neytendasamtökin – NS (Iceland), Alliance of Lithuanian Consumer Organisations, Bulgarian National Association Active Consumers – BNAAC, Consumers' Association of Ireland – CAI, The Portuguese Association for Consumer Protection - DECO (Portugal), The Cyprus Consumers’ Association – CCA, OCU (Spain), CECU (Spain), The Austrian Consumers’ Association  - VKI, The Consumers' Association of Finland, Romanian Association for Consumers' Protection – APC, The Swedish Consumers' Association – SK, The Polish Consumer Federation – FK, The Consumer Council (Norway), The Slovene Consumers’ Association – ZPS, Test-Achats (Belgium).