WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the meeting on Availability, Accessibility, Affordability of Medicines and Medical Devices for a Stronger and Resilient EU

GENEVA, 29 April 2021 /PRNewswire Policy/ -- Your Excellency Marta Temido,

Your Excellency Stella Kyriakides,

Dolors Montserrat,

Distinguished guests, dear colleagues and friends,

Thank you for the invitation to address you today on this very important topic at this very important time.

Access to medicines and medical products has always been a central element of health.

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that even more vividly.

In the earliest days of the pandemic, the availability of personal protective equipment for health workers was a major challenge, as you remember.

We have also had significant problems with the accessibility of diagnostics and medical oxygen, which is costing lives, as we are now seeing in India.

And as you know, inequitable access to vaccines is one of the defining challenges of the pandemic.

So far, more than 1 billion doses have been administered globally, but 82% of those have been in high- and upper-middle income countries, while just 0.3% have been administered in low-income countries.

The COVID-19 crisis has exposed the urgent need for more resilient health systems that can ensure uninterrupted availability, affordability and equitable access to medicines and medical technologies.

Medicines and medical devices are essential at every stage of the continuum of care, from prevention to diagnosis, treatment, monitoring, rehabilitation and palliative care.

Yet all too often these products are unavailable or unaffordable to those that need them.

Even when medicines are available, associated medical devices are often not.

For example, very few countries provide test strips as part of diabetes care programmes to help monitor blood glucose in people who need insulin.

An estimated 1 billion people globally and 44 million in the European Union need assistive products such as wheelchairs, glasses, hearing aids and white canes, but only 10 to 15% have access to these life-enabling products.

The challenges are many: inadequate investment in research and development; lack of effective policies for selecting health products; inadequate financing and expenditure management; weak regulatory capacity; and insufficient resources for procurement and supply chain management, to name a few.

For decades, WHO's prequalification program has played a major role in shaping global market dynamics and improving the accessibility and affordability of medicines, biosimilars and diagnostics.

WHO also supports countries in the selection of medicines and other health products with the WHO Model List of Essential Medicines, the Essential in vitro diagnostic list, the Priority Medical devices list and the Priority Assistive Devices list.

Let me leave you with three specific areas in which WHO believes we need action:

First, closer collaboration.

WHO already works with the European Medicines Agency, national regulators and many other partners to improve the accessibility, availability and affordability of medicines and medical products.

We need to expand these efforts to close the gaps and overcome the limitations of current incentive models for research and development.

WHO welcomes the EU's Pharmaceutical Strategy for Europe and the “EU4Health Programme” that will finance strategies aimed at reducing the fragmentation and vulnerability of medical product supply chains in Europe.

Second, consistent nomenclature.

WHO welcomes the European initiative on a nomenclature for medical devices that is transparent and available to all users in all Member States. This is one of the initiatives being considered as part of discussions about a global nomenclature.

Third, transparent pricing.

Increasing transparency is a key strategy to promote competition and expand access to generic and biosimilar medicines, improve and coordinate pricing and procurement policies across borders, and ensure affordability.

Creating an environment for a competitive and efficient European pharmaceutical industry is of strategic interest for public health, not only in Europe but globally, to stabilise global supply chains and deliver quality-assured products.

The pandemic has shown that health is not a luxury for the few, but a human right, and the foundation of social, economic and political stability.

If that's the case, we must seize this moment to work towards a world in which all people have access to all the medicines and medical products they need, where and when they need them.

I thank you.

SOURCE World Health Organization (WHO)