EGA president seeks partnership with Italian government on generics and biosimilars

The president of the European Generic Medicines Association (EGA), Nick Haggar, attended the Stati Generali della Salute Conference in Rome, Italy, this week at the invitation of Italian Minister of Health, Beatrice Lorenzin. The conference was attended by European and Italian policy makers and stakeholders discussing the main challenges affecting the health sector in Italy.

"The generic and biosimilar medicines industries are at the heart of public health in Europe," said Mr Haggar, providing examples of the generic and biosimilar medicines industries’ contribution to patient access and health care budgets through therapeutic innovation. He presented the EGA Vision focusing on Patients, Quality, Value, Sustainability and Partnership.

Mr Haggar invited the Italian authorities to intensify collaboration, saying: "The generic and biosimilar medicines industries, through their Italian trade association Assogenerici, would like to establish a partnership with the Italian government in order to increase patient access to treatments and to liberate health care budget for therapeutic innovations. The aim is to build a sustainable and predictable market environment in Italy for high-quality generic and biosimilar medicines, by removing barriers such as patent linkage and re-shaping the current claw-back system."

Pharma market expected to contract in 2014

According to a recent report from Business Monitor International, the pharmaceuticals market in Italy was worth 20.91 billion euros ($27.60 billion) in 2013 but is expected to decline to 19.93 billion ($25.31 billion) in 2014; -4.7% in local currency terms and -8.3% in US dollars