G-10 pharma group to look at competitiveness

A consultation round has been launched by the so-called G-10 pharmaceuticals group, which was set up by the European Commission to consider ways of enhancing the industry's competitiveness, while safeguarding patient interests. Comments have been requested on a paper, which examines issues such as pricing, patient information, cost-effectiveness, competitiveness, benchmarking, innovation and generics. Replies are to be fed into a final report and recommendations from the group, to be released next April.

The group is looking into a number of issues, including how successfully member states' health systems deliver cost-effective access to medicines, how to better identify innovative medicines and what scope there is for increased competition.