Reflector

As a European politician attacks abuses of the orphan drug scheme, a European report extols its virtues. Reflector asks: in Europe, does the right hand know what the left hand is doing?

It's an obvious question for every pharmaceutical executive - and the question no-one dares to answer: what happens if the UK leaves the EU?

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is the latest to clamber aboard the well-filled bandwagon now rumbling and rattling across Europe in an increasingly noisy debate over drug prices. Reflector reports.

Some of the radical thinking on healthcare spending from a new EC specialist group offers robust food for thought, writes Reflector.

Reflector outlines the current measures European countries are working or collaborating on to achieve a better understanding of pricing issues.

Adoption of joint procurement agreement signals new effort from EU to better understand drug pricing issues.

France is a striking example of why Europe is still only "edging towards" a genuine universal system

France's bid to regain its influence reveals how far Europe is from fully achieving regulatory convergence, writes Reflector.

The volatility of nation's crisis could pose greater challenges down the line

There are evident challenges for pharma in the ongoing Greek crisis. But, writes Reflector, there are some less evident challenges which may, over time, prove to be more difficult for the industry to cope with.

With Ireland’s signing of a vaccine procurement agreement this month, the EU’s move toward joint action on medicine acquisition is gathering pace, writes Reflector.

Reflector looks at the revitalized European Union directive on patients’ rights in cross-border healthcare.

Edging through the complex terrain that is health technology assessment in Europe

Reflector edges through the complex terrain that is health technology assessment in Europe.

The EU’s proposed new study on off-label prescribing is just another way of kicking the subject into the long grass.

The EU’s proposed new on off-label prescribing is just another way of kicking the issue into the long grass, writes Reflector.

Just as the medicine adaptive pathways to patients (MAPPs) gains currency in the world of medicine, the EU has come up with STAMP, a new expert group intended to assist the process, but which might well suffocate it. Reflector reports.

New EU group could ultimately end up handcuffing much-needed efforts to modernize drug authorization.

New competition commissioner steps into the unenviable role of trying to solve two particularly contentious pharma firestorms.

Brussels correspondent Reflector asks, what attitude will the new EC for competition, Margrethe Vestager, adopt to the pharmaceutical industry?

Only a year ago, hopes were high of rapid progress towards a transatlantic trade deal that would boost the European and US economies - and ease conditions for drug firms on both sides of the ocean.

It’s difficult to open an email or an envelope in Brussels these days without yet another agenda falling out of it, carrying the promise of a new start.

Any complacency that the world of healthcare might be feeling about advances in the ability to treat patients suffered a head-on assault in Dublin, Ireland, last week, at a conference organized under the auspices of the Irish Presidency of the European Union and featuring a galaxy of Irish and European stars from the worlds of politics, regulation, research, industry and patients.

The plan to accelerate generic pricing and reimbursement has become another tragic European casualty, writes Brussels correspondent Reflector.

Pharm Exec’s EU correspondent, Reflector, looks at some of the European regulatory developments earmarked for 2014 and anticipates their effect on the industry.

The data-transparency bandwagon is rolling rapidly across Europe, energetically propelled by regulators, health campaigners, and generic manufacturers.

The shockwaves from the current European Union debates in Brussels on medical devices are likely to echo through the medicines business over the next few years.

As the process to create the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) gets underway, Reflector asks, what is the likelihood of drug firms - and patients - reaping any rewards from the negotiations?

The ink is not yet dry on the European Union’s Horizon 2020 agreement to invest some €70 billion ($92 bn) in research over the next seven years, and already contenders for funding are jostling for attention.

Tensions are rising in Europe’s pharmaceutical sector as crunch-time approaches for the legislation to combat counterfeits. By this time next year, the European Commission is due to have decided on the mechanisms required to put into effect the European Union’s hugely complex new rules to keep falsified medicines out of the legal supply chain. The manufacturing industry will have to carry the cost of much of the chosen system - and there is wide disagreement about what sort of system should be introduced, and who should pay for it.