EC pharma package
European Union law allows pharmaceutical companies to advertise prescription-only products to health professionals who prescribe or supply them, but bans advertising to patients and the public.
The European Commission has now adopted a proposal brought by the Directorate General for Enterprise & Industry to change European law to allow direct-to-consumer communication. The text adopted by the Commission proposes allowing pharmaceutical companies to disseminate information about prescription-only medicine to patients and the public via:
"(a) health-related publications as defined by the Member State of publication, to the exclusion of unsolicited material actively distributed to the general public or members thereof;
(b) internet websites on medicinal products, to the exclusion of unsolicited material actively distributed to the general public or members thereof;
(c) written answers to requests for information of a member of the general public."
Picker Institute Europe's position:
- the proposal is driven by the interests of the pharmaceutical industry, not by patient or public interests
- the proposal falls very far short of the comprehensive information strategy envisaged by the European Parliament in drafting Article 88a of Directive 2001/83/EC
- without clear criteria to distinguish between 'information' and 'advertising' the proposal risks undermining the advertising ban which currently protects patients, the public and healthcare systems from commercial pressures.
Picker Institute Europe, together with Which? and the European consumer organisation BEUC, had asked European Commissioners to reject DG Enterprise & Industry's proposal in favour of a comprehensive and genuinely patient-centred medicines information strategy for Europe.