Medicines for Europe, the trade association representing generic and biosimilar medicines manufacturers, on April 12, 2026, urged the European Union to adopt procurement criteria that go beyond price to secure medicine supply chains. In a statement, the group argued that current procurement practices, which often prioritise the lowest price, undermine supply security and resilience, particularly for essential medicines. The call comes amid ongoing EU efforts to strengthen pharmaceutical supply chains and follows recent regulatory developments by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
On April 8, 2026, the EMA's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) proposed stricter requirements for pediatric medicine development and published minutes discussing pediatric investigation plans, signalling a broader push to enhance medicine regulation. Separately, the EMA's Veterinary Medicines Division launched several initiatives on the same day, including proposals for enhanced monitoring of veterinary medicine effectiveness and safety, as well as awareness campaigns for veterinary medicine package leaflets and adverse event reporting. While these actions focus on veterinary products, they reflect the EMA's increasing attention to post-market surveillance and supply chain transparency.
Medicines for Europe's proposal targets EU institutions, national procurement authorities, and pharmaceutical companies, advocating for criteria such as manufacturing redundancy, stockpiling capacity, and environmental sustainability to be weighted alongside price. The association warns that over-reliance on cost minimisation has led to fragile supply chains, with many active pharmaceutical ingredients sourced from a limited number of non-EU countries. The group's stance aligns with broader EU policy discussions on strategic autonomy and critical medicines, though it introduces a potential cleavage between cost containment for healthcare systems and investment in supply resilience. For EU producers, broader criteria could mean higher upfront costs but greater market stability; for national authorities, it may require more complex tender evaluations; for patients, improved security of supply; and for taxpayers, potentially higher medicine prices in the short term.