Joint purchasing of vaccines and medicines becomes a reality in the EU
11 Apr 2014 03:10 PM
The Commission has approved a Joint Procurement
Agreement, which will enable all EU countries to procure pandemic vaccines and
other medical countermeasures as a group, rather than
individually.
Joint procurement enables Member States to ensure that
pandemic vaccines and medicines are available in sufficient quantities and at a
correct price should a cross border health threat emerge. The mechanism will
benefit all EU countries, in particular the ones which encountered difficulties
in purchasing vaccines developed for the H1N1 pandemic in 2009. 27 EU countries
have declared their intention to sign the Agreement. The Joint
Procurement Agreement is voluntary, and will enter into force two weeks after
it has been signed by a third of participating Member States (10 countries) and
the Commission.
European Commissioner for Health, Mr Tonio Borg
said: "Joint procurement of pandemic vaccines and other medical
countermeasures is a key achievement of our work to protect citizens from
serious cross-border threats to health. Through joint procurement all Member
States, big and small, can be better prepared for future health threats: they
will be able to provide their citizens with the necessary medicines and to
obtain them under better conditions than in the past. I call on all Member
States to sign the Joint Procurement Agreement as soon as possible so that we
can proceed to the first procurement of pandemic
vaccines."
The
Joint Procurement Agreement in practice
The
potential of the Joint Procurement Agreement reaches beyond vaccines for
pandemics. Member States could benefit from extending the agreement to cover
the purchase of medical countermeasures for other infectious diseases, such as
botulism, anthrax, hepatitis B or polio.
Signing the Joint Procurement Agreement does not imply
any immediate financial commitment for Member States. A financial commitment
will only be necessary when they sign contracts following procurement
procedures launched on the basis of the Agreement.
Through the Joint Procurement Agreement, any EU country
can make a proposal to others to procure medical countermeasures together. The
process will be guided by two types of steering committee: the Joint
Procurement Agreement Steering Committee that will be in charge of all the
issues relating to the subject matter of the Joint Procurement Agreement; and
the Specific Procurement Procedure Steering Committee that will be in charge of
the matters relating to specific procurement procedures.
The
first meeting of the Joint Procurement Agreement Steering Committee will be
convened once one third of EU countries have ratified the Joint Procurement
Agreement. During this meeting Member States will decide on which medical
countermeasure they want to purchase jointly.
Background
The
call for a joint procurement mechanism came from Member States after reflecting
on the lessons learned from the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic (popularly known
as ‘swine flu’). This reflection exercise highlighted weaknesses in
the mechanisms in place in EU countries for procuring vaccines and medications.
It underlined the need to introduce a common procedure for the joint
procurement of medical countermeasures, and in particular of pandemic vaccines,
to allow Member States, on a voluntary basis, to improve their purchasing power
and have equitable access to vaccines and antivirals.
Council conclusions with these recommendations were
adopted in September 2010 and approved at the Council of Health Ministers in
2010, allowing Member States, on a voluntary basis, common acquisition of these
products or “common approaches to contract negotiations with the
industry”. The need to strengthen solidarity between EU countries in a
serious health crisis, by creating the mechanism for joint procurement, was
further backed by the European Parliament in their Resolution of 8 March
2011.
On
this basis, and as the joint procurement of medical countermeasures is included
as an article in the2013 decision on
serious cross-border threats to health, the Commission launched the
procedure to prepare an agreement for the joint procurement of vaccines in the
case of a future pandemic.
For
more information please see:
http://ec.europa.eu/health/preparedness_response/policy/decision/index_en
.htm
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