WHO calls on European countries to stop rising drug prices

A World Health Organization (WHO) report says European governments need to share more expert opinion on the effectiveness of spending on new medicines to deal with financial stress caused by high drug prices.

Illustration: rte.ie

Currently, very few European countries have a mechanism to assess whether the value of medicines is appropriate and commensurate with the price offered by the manufacturer.

Additionally, drug supply and prices are often determined through opaque agreements between governments and manufacturers, making it difficult to increase transparency to lower drug prices.

The WHO’s call comes amid growing debate over the value of new drugs, while assessing the economic benefits of drugs is outside the responsibility of licensing bodies such as the European Medicines Agency.

"The key objective is to protect patients' interests and ensure that new medicines are not offered at prohibitively high prices that provide little or no improvement in people's health," said Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO Regional Director for Europe.

The world pharmaceutical industry is currently entering a period of strong development thanks to great achievements from research, with many new drug treatment regimens being applied.

However, the prices of some drugs have increased unreasonably, affecting people's access to pharmaceuticals, especially in low- and middle-income countries. The prices of new drugs are a "hot" topic not only among doctors and politicians, but also among investors.

Higher drug prices may be a boon for many manufacturers, especially biotech companies, but many investors worry that the trend will be stopped as health authorities review and rationalize spending plans.

According to Vietnam+