Pharmaceutical industry: outlines of an instrustrial policy for the pharmaceutical sector

In adopting the report by Mrs Irene SOLTWEDEL-SCHÄFER (V) by 233 votes to 162 and 5 abstentions, Parliament called for: - governments to cut back the cost of using medicines. A critical eye should be kept on the resultant restructuring, to ensure that monopoly situations do not arise; - the close monitoring of mergers in this sector, an increase in the cost effectiveness of research rather than the pursuit of an industrial policy based on deregulation and subsidies; - an end to the industry's frenetic use of advertising; - the encouragement of genuine innovation; - the maintenance of protection for new medicinal products by intellectual property rights; - the introduction of measures, in advance of patent or supplementary protection certificate expiry, enabling the beginning of such laboratory experiments and regulatory preparations as may be required for the registration of generic pharmaceuticals, so that they may be available on the market after the expiry of the patent; - the focusing of research on innovative therapies, diseases which cannot yet be treated satisfactorily, and rare diseases; - the establishment of a dialogue between the politicians, employers, unions and patients; - better access to research and development for SMEs, particularly in the biotechnology field; - the development of the European Medicines Evaluation Agency into a Community-wide licensing authority; - the reduction of animal experiments; - improvement in the marketing of herbal and homeopathic medicines through the adjustment of the authorization procedure and the setting-up of a Traditional Medicines Evaluation Agency; - the encouragement of responsible self-medication; - the introduction of a responsible policy on exports; - the Commission to consider what instruments were best suited to disseminating information, independent of the industry, on the effects and the risks of medicinal products (Green amendments). It should be noted that Parliament accepts that, whilst some fears have been expressed about the risks of genetic engineering, it is justified and desirable that all types of research should continue, with scrupulous respect for human and animal life, particularly in the development of new therapies for diseases which are not as yet susceptible to any form of treatment. �