K. Šaško: Slovakia supports the EU’s intentions to invest more in critical medicines
Brussels/Luxembourg – Slovakia supports the European Union’s intentions to invest more in self-sufficiency in the area of critical medicines. This was stated by the Minister of Health of the Slovak Republic, Kamil Šaško (Hlas-SD), after the conclusion of Friday’s EU Health Council in Luxembourg, as reported by TASR.
Šaško reminded that the Council of Ministers dealt with many topics, considering the law on critical medicines and the preparation of the pharmaceutical legislative package as particularly important. According to him, the EU law on critical medicines should also be viewed in the context of similar policies worldwide, for example, in comparison with the American drug law.
“The goal is to ensure that there is enough medicine for patients and users in the EU in critical situations,” Šaško explained. He emphasized that the EU as a whole needs to gain much greater autonomy, ideally even self-sufficiency in this sector, which means more investments in European drug production and ensuring mechanisms that will guarantee the availability of medicines not only during crises, such as the coronavirus pandemic, but also in the event of wars, like the one in Ukraine.
“The strategic goal of the EU and Slovakia is to invest where it has strategic significance and into domestic drug production. This will give us a certain autonomy from third countries,” he added.
The ministers’ discussions also addressed general investments in medicines in the EU in an effort to reduce dependence on their import from third countries.
“From Slovakia’s perspective, this is an important topic because there are new companies that are investing quite massively in this area, and therefore, from my point of view, it was useful to emphasize that sufficient financial instruments should be secured at the European level to support such investments,” he said.
He identified the pharmaceutical legislative package as another important topic, where the EU Council (member states) is in the negotiation phase with the European Parliament. He pointed out that this topic is also being addressed by the Slovak Ministry of Health.
“This is the new drug policy, where at the European level it is about ensuring the availability of medicines, but also increasing competitiveness in this area. A key topic for Slovakia is so-called parallel trade or re-export of medicines, which concerns prices and availability of medicines within the European Union,” he described the situation.
He also considered the discussions among ministers on the topic of mental health of children and adolescents in the online space and the topic of prevention and reduction of dependencies on tobacco products and alcohol to be significant, as his ministry plans to propose a ban on the sale of flavored nicotine products and single-use electronic cigarettes. (June 20)
“The strategic goal of the EU and Slovakia is to invest where it has strategic significance and into domestic drug production. This will give us a certain autonomy from third countries.” Kamil Šaško
