John Dalli promises reassessment of the Information to Patients proposal

Many eyes were on John Dalli, curious to know his views on pharmaceutical policy, which is a new component of the Health and Consumer Commissioner’s portfolio.

More specifically, MEPs wanted to know whether any changes to the so called Pharmaceutical package were going to be envisaged as a result of this governance change. The answers came right away: ""We will reassess the package on information and bring more patient perspective to the proposal".

John Dalli assured Peter Liese MEP (EPP, DE, EPP Coordinator for the ENVI Committee) of his intentions to move on fast with the Pharmacovigilance and Falsified Medicines directives and regulation, whilst he promised to reassess the Information to Patients proposal. Following a question from Christofer Fjellner (EPP, Swe), he added that a "stronger demarcation between information and advertising" was needed.

Marina Yannakoudakis MEP (ECR, UK) wanted to know how to strike a balance between the needs of the patients and the industry. John Dalli reminded the Parliament that he wanted to "put patients first", but that this did "not exclude a strong commitment that the pharma industry remains competitive". Moreover, Dalli added in response to Glenis Willmott MEP (S&D, UK) that, in order to put forward the patient’s perspective he would rely on MEPs and patients’ organisations. He however asked the Members of the European Parliament to make sure they represent people’s views and not those of the pharmaceutical industry.

Antonyia Parvanova MEP (ALDE, BG) brought the issue of counterfeit medicines in the debate. Mr Dalli explained that he considered counterfeit medicines as "not only a danger to consumers but also to innovation". "I will work hard to make sure that the same controls which apply to the off-line world also apply to the on-line one", he added.

Building on his statement from the written answers to the European Parliament ("Funding of patients’ groups from the Health Programme will be reconsidered with the aim of supporting non-profit organisations which represent patients’ groups effectively, without any conflict of interest."), Mr Dalli added that he will consider various options in order to ensure proper funding for patient groups and thus support their independence from the pharmaceutical industry funding.