WHO/Europe’s Novel Medicines Platform (NMP) convened its second working group, focusing on the theme of transparency, in Brussels, Belgium, on 5–6 December 2023.
“Transparency is critical for transforming patient access to novel medicines. We need all stakeholders involved, including the public and private sectors,” said Natasha Azzopardi-Muscat, Director of WHO/Europe’s Division of Country Health Policies and Systems. “WHO/Europe is a neutral convenor, creating a safe space where we can be creative and open and have genuine dialogue among stakeholders.”
Chaired by Francis Arickx, Head of the Directorate of Reimbursement of Medicines and Pharmaceutical Policy within the Health Care Department of Belgium’s National Institute for Health and Disability Insurance (NIHDI), this first meeting of Working Group 1 (WG1) brought together diverse stakeholders from Member States, non-State actors and other partner organizations. Together, they explored how to increase transparency to improve patient access to novel medicines.
“With regards to improving transparency, alignment of initiatives is vital, and this can be done through people coming together – only with collaboration can we move things forward,” said Pedro Facon, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the NIHDI.
This area of focus is in line with the European Programme of Work, 2020–2025, and in accordance with the framework set out in World Health Assembly resolution WHA72.8 of 2019 on improving the transparency of markets for medicines, vaccines and other health products.
WG1 is dedicated to agreeing on actions to improve transparency in order to build trust, promote collaboration, enable horizon scanning, and develop indicators to facilitate accountability and corrective actions. The group will determine what information can be made more transparent, why there is a need for this, who owns this information and how transparency can be achieved.
At the meeting, delegates committed to improving the transparency, availability, visibility and use of information relating to access to medicines. They discussed the variability in access to this information across the WHO European Region, and agreed to a more in-depth review of the information systems available.
Francis Arickx shared, “Transparency requires openness, communication, and accountability from and towards the patients, stakeholders, industry and society. We need not only ask for transparency from the pharmaceutical industry regarding how they set prices, how much they want to gain and how much was invested in drugs development; we also need to ask for transparency from the buyer's side – their needs and expectations, and how much funds are available and can be invested.”
About the NMP
The NMP was created at the 72nd session of the WHO Regional Committee for Europe in September 2022 to build on the achievements of its predecessor, the Oslo Medicines Initiative (2020–2022). It is a formal stakeholder collaboration platform through which WHO/Europe acts as a neutral convenor, host and facilitator to improve people’s access to novel medicines. The aim of the NMP is to identify concrete actions, including pilot proposals, to improve affordable and equitable patient access to effective, novel, high-cost medicines in the Region.