European Public Health Alliance urges European Commission to support new drugs to market

The European Public Health Alliance has said it welcomes the European Commission’s proposal to improve health systems, and issued its own response, encouraging the EC to support new drugs coming to the market.

The EPHA’s concerns about health systems include the significant reductions in health care budgets risking creating new inefficiencies, by undermining access and quality of care. It also signaled a disparity between approaches to prevention and cure, stating that only 3% of health budgets are dedicated to prevention compared to 97% for treatment. It highlighted co-payments hindering people’s capacity to access health care since patients could postpone seeking care while having financial problems, and said that communication between health systems and the general public needs to improve.

One of its key recommendations was for the EC to support new drugs coming to the market with additional therapeutic value compared to currently available therapies.