MEPs press for stronger patients' rights on prescription medicines in Europe

Patients must have better access to high quality information on prescription drugs in the future, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) decided last week (see also The Pharma Letter September 30). Objective information on a drug's characteristics and the health conditions it is intended to treat should be among the details given, said the EP Environment Committee. At the same time, MEPs want to protect patients from unsolicited information on medicines.

The basic aim of the legislation drafted by the European Commission is to ensure the availability of good-quality, objective, reliable and non-promotional information on medicines. However, the Environment Committee voted to emphasise patients' rights to information rather than making the provision of information an option for the pharmaceutical companies, as the Commission suggested.

In the reports drafted by Christofer Fjellner (EPP, SE), the Committee wants to specify which data must be made available to the public by pharmaceutical firms, which information is optional and through which channels it is to be supplied. It also wants European Union member states to be required to give citizens objective and unbiased information on medicines.