Europe's economic and intellectual property crossroads

On January 23, the Committee on Legal Affairs of the European Parliament (JURI voted for the draft report on supplementary protection certificate (SPC) for medicinal products (2018/0161[COD]), which puts the future of medical innovation and access to the latest treatments for patients in Europe at risk, says the leading European pharma lobbying body.

While the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations ( EFPIA) says it respects the position of the co-legislators, the amendments on two-year stockpiling, a very early implementation date and weakened safeguards, adopted today in JURI, cannot be reconciled with the objective of the duly assessed proposal of the European Commission. If adopted in the final text, the amendments will impact European patients living with unmet medical needs, they will significantly weaken Europe’s research and development offering, as well as drive away investment and jobs from our SMEs, our companies, our academic institutions and our healthcare systems.

The amendments recalibrate the European economy from a knowledge-based region at the cutting edge of research, development and medical innovation to a Europe that is not competitive on the global R&D stage and fails to attract future investments for the benefit of patients.