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As drug prices in Europe soar, Public Pharma advocates are charting a new course
Health workers, activists, and access to medicines advocates have gathered in Frankfurt on October 22-23 for the 2nd Public Pharma Conference. The event builds on roughly two years of work by the Public Pharma for Europe Coalition, which aims to construct an alternative vision for the region’s pharmaceutical landscape – and to strengthen the links needed to turn that vision into reality.
“When we had the first conference in 2024, we realized there are many people practically working on this topic who shared a similar vision and a similar goal,” Frauke Heller from medico international told BreakThrough News.
The new conference aims to open the space to even more advocates, she added, in a region where the Big Pharma lobby remains extremely influential.
Read more: Public pharma infrastructure could give the world access to a treasure trove of medicines
The first day focused on the coalition’s expansion and the shifting global landscape it faces, including growing concerns about the availability and affordability of medicines across Europe.
Speakers – including commons activist Gaëlle Krikorian, Tim Joye, president of Medics for the People (MPLP-GVHV), researcher Tineke Kleinhout-Vliek, and Jan Wintgens, coordinator of the People’s Health Movement (PHM) Public Pharma program in Europe – detailed how a system reliant on Big Pharma is deepening these access problems.
Their interventions also highlighted that alternatives already exist. Kleinhout-Vliek pointed to dozens of existing examples of drug research, development, and innovation projects in Europe alone that are supported by the public sector in different ways. “This used to happen only in ‘market-failure’ areas, but it’s now moving into profitable drugs too,” she pointed out.
Austerity is exacerbating access to medicines issues
The conference recognized that rising drug prices in Europe have sharpened the visibility of this issue compared to earlier years, when social security systems were still able to secure access to medicines for patients in the region. That is less the case today, as Big Pharma companies set exorbitant prices for new products – and social security systems themselves are undermined by austerity.
The effects are felt across the region, with Joye and Krikorian turning to examples from Belgium and France. In Belgium, Joye said, the case of a family forced to fundraise close to €2 million for a spinal muscular atrophy injection for a baby reinforced MPLP’s efforts to envision a different pharma system. In France, current drug prices have been driving both patients and pharmacists “out of their minds,” Krikorian emphasized, prompting them to become more critical of the whole system.
Read more: Listening through the social stethoscope: MPLP’s health workers redefine care in Belgium
These developments cannot be separated from the situation affecting the world today, related to the weakening position of the United States, speakers and participants seemed to agree.
“If we compare the world in March 2024 to today, the difference is enormous,” Joye said, citing a recent decision by drug giant GSK to cut 1,200 jobs from its 8,000-strong operations in Belgium. “This is not a company in financial difficulties: they’re cutting jobs because they’re planning to shift part of their operations to the US under the influence of the Trump administration.”
People in Europe are growing increasingly scared of war, due to their governments’ arms race, he added, but also of losing their jobs. “Politicians using this fear to increase the power of the multinationals instead of changing the system.”
Experiences from socialism and the Global South
As the European Public Pharma coalition continues to grow its ranks, it remains attentive to experiences from the past, including the public production of vaccines in formerly socialist states of Eastern Europe – as presented by David Franco from Public Pharma for Europe and Goran Jeras from the Cooperative for Ethical Financing.
But the platform is also looking toward practical examples of orienting pharmaceutical research and production away from a profit-making model. This includes the work of Cuban scientists, who have achieved groundbreaking breakthroughs despite the ongoing blockade imposed by the US, as well as medical research institutes in Brazil and efforts to establish public production of therapies in Canada.
Gerardo Guillén from the China-Cuba Biotechnology Innovation Center linked the island’s breakthroughs – including interferon therapy, innovative treatments for diabetic foot, and COVID-19 medicines – to the people-centered healthcare erected following the revolution.
Cuba’s persistent research and innovation cannot be separated from Fidel Castro‘s appeal for a science-based revolution – a science that serves the needs of the people – Guillén pointed out.
Read more: Humanity owes Cuba: unilateral coercive measures and the politics of punishment
Another example came from Martin Häuer of the Open Source Imaging Initiative (OSI²), who walked participants through existing efforts to build MR imaging machines using open-source tools. For now, the project team was able to assemble functioning prototypes for around €20,000 – with reassembly in low-income health systems like Ghana’s projected at around €24,000.
This amount represents roughly 10% of the standard market price of an MRI: significantly increasing the chance of the technology becoming more widely accessible and showing how significant the impact of these initiatives can be globally.
People’s Health Dispatch is a monthly bulletin published by the People’s Health Movement and Peoples Dispatch. For more articles and to subscribe to People’s Health Dispatch, click here.
