62% of medicines dispensed in Europe are generic, says new IMS data

Public health: new IMS data reveals the growing importance of generic medicines for public health as they now account for 62% of medicines dispensed in Europe delivering huge value while impacting only 4% of total healthcare budgets.

Shortages: A new Economist Intelligence Unit report underlined that unsustainable pricing policies are leading to shortages of essential life-saving medicines. Industry vows to change policies that threaten patient access.

Regulatory Cooperation: global industry leaders and regulators advanced a clear proposal to increase regulatory cooperation to ensure safety, quality and efficacy while reducing administrative redundancies.

Generic, biosimilar and value added medicines

Pharmaceutical industry leaders and key stakeholders from the generic, biosimilar and value added medicines sectors met in Lisbon to foster international partnership, cooperation and dialogue to address public health challenges for the future during the joint 23rd Medicines for Europe and 20th IGBA Annual Conference. In addition to international regulatory cooperation, several key studies were presented at the conference that highlight the need for a major overhaul of medicines policies to stimulate more access to generic, biosimilar and value added medicines.

Unsustainable pricing

Generic medicines now account for the lion’s share (62%) of Europe’s medicines according to the latest data from Quintiles IMS. As the primary industry responsible for providing medicines to patients, we take our public health responsibilities seriously. To sustain this access, it is essential that unsustainable medicine pricing policies are reformed, as they are massively increasing the risk of serious medicines shortages – as outlined in a report by the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Jacek Glinka, Medicines for Europe President commented: "With Generic medicines accounting for 62% of all medicines dispensed in the EU, we call on EU payers to refrain from imposing unsustainable pricing policies that lead to medicines shortages and EU regulators to increase regulatory cooperation to reduce administrative redundancies".

Open dialogue

"We need to implement the recommendations of the WHO Fair Pricing Forum: dialogue between regulators, payers and industry should tackle unsustainable procurement policies", added Adrian van den Hoven, Chair of the IGBA.