MEDICINES : PRICING: MEPS REWORK PROPOSAL.

MEPs have rejected the main justification for the proposal on revision of rules on the transparency of medicine prices - COM(2012)0084 - ie to shorten the time limit given to national authorities to adopt decisions on prices and reimbursement of medicines. With their vote on the report by Antonyia Parvanova (ALDE, Bulgaria) in the EP's Committee on the Environment and Public Health (ENVI), on 18 December 2012, MEPs call for the existing time limits to remain in place.

The draft directive presented by the Commission in March 2012 is meant to modernise the 1989 text, which is no longer adapted to today's market, if only due to the emergence of generic drugs. This legislation set conditions for transparency in pricing procedures, to prevent discrimination against imported products. The Commission, with the aim of rewarding pharmaceutical innovation and making innovative drugs available to patients more quickly, wishes to shorten these time limits. It proposes to reduce them to 60 and 15 days for generic drugs, but amendments adopted by the committee maintain the limits at 90 and 30 days. The Council also seems to be leaning towards a lengthening, at...