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The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 269 No 7222 p632
2 November 2002

Related websites
The Lancet (www.thelancet.com)

Euro-MPs reject proposals to reform availability of medicines information

Proposals to allow pharmaceutical companies to provide information directly to the public on medicines to treat AIDS, asthma and diabetes have been rejected by the European Parliament (PJ, 19 October, p560).

MEPs voted against the plan by 504 to 30, with 16 abstentions.

European legislators are currently consolidating and updating European Directives on pharmaceutical products at the instigation of the European Commission.

The commission has also proposed that all new medicines should be centrally licensed by the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products. This met with the European Parliament's approval.

The amended proposals will now go to the European Union's Council of Ministers to be considered before returning to the parliament for a second reading.

The MEPs' decision has been welcomed by the Pharmaceutical Group of the European Union, which said that MEPs had confirmed the view that medicines were not to be treated as consumer goods.

Erkki Liikanen, European Commissioner for Enterprise, said that the overall package of proposals would increase the availability of innovative medicines while favouring competition with generics. He added that the central authorisation procedure meant that new medicines would be available throughout Europe more quickly than was currently the case.

Commenting on therejection of the information proposal, Mr Liikanen said: "Our proposal would not allow unsolicited advertising [of medicines for AIDS, asthma or diabetes] as is the case in the United States. But it would enable these patients to get good, appropriate and officially authorised information if they so request."

Patients who want information on medicines generally get it from websites in the US, the commissioner went on. But not all Europeans have access to the internet or understand English. Also, US medicines are not always the same as European ones even when they shares the same name and this poses a health risk.

"Nothing is further from our minds than introducing advertising for prescription medicines in Europe," he added.

A series of four articles assessing the pharmaceutical industry's role in the provision of information about medicines starts this week in The Lancet. The authors of the first article are critical of the way in which multinational pharmaceutical companies manipulate the provision of information, and say that this contributes to a distortion of medical research.