Bartosz ARŁUKOWICZ

Policy topics Bartosz ARŁUKOWICZ is active on

What Bartosz ARŁUKOWICZ has said (6)

• 2024-10-02 “P-001924/2024 Answer given by Ms Kyriakides on behalf of the European Commission In December 2023, the Commission with Member States and the European Medicines Agency (EMA) published the first version of the Union List of Critical Medicines 1 . The publication follows the commitment made in the Commission's Communication on addressing medicine shortages in the EU 2 to accelerate the work on this list, originally announced in the EU's pharmaceutical reform proposal. The publication of the Union List aimed to support and expedite the analysis of vulnerabilities in the supply chains of the critical medicines. An assessment of the supply chain vulnerabilities of a first subset was published in June 2024 3 . On the basis of this assessment, the Critical Medicines Alliance will propose recommendations to address the identified challenges in Q1 2025, with the aim to mitigate structural risks and to reinforce supply. Member States have the responsibility to manage shortages in their own territory. At the EU level, the Executive Steering Group on Shortages and Safety of Medicinal Products, consisting of representatives of Member States, the EMA and the Commission, monitors and responds to ongoing shortages of medicines that cannot be resolved at Member State level. If needed, Member States can deploy the Voluntary Solidarity Mechanism to redistribute stocks available in another Member State. All these actions are taken ahead of the adoption of the new EU pharmaceutical legislation 4 , which includes stronger obligations for companies and a framework for EU coordination to manage ongoing critical shortages and enhance security of supply of critical medicines. Finally, the Commission will propose a Critical Medicines Act 5 to tackle shortages of critical medicines and reduce the dependencies. 1 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_6377; https://health.ec.europa.eu/health-emergencypreparedness-and-response-hera/overview/critical-medicines-alliance_en 2 https://commission.europa.eu/system/files/2023-10/Communication_medicines_shortages_EN_0.pdf 3 https://health.ec.europa.eu/document/download/67294e68-3a9a-4a73-8c9f-899338bac7f9_en?filename=hera_scvcritical-medicines_1t_assessment_en.pdf 4 https://health.ec.europa.eu/medicinal-products/pharmaceutical-strategy-europe/reform-eu-pharmaceuticallegislation_en 5 https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/b1817a1b-e62e-4949-bbb8ebf29b54c8bd_en?filename=Mission%20letter%20-%20VARHELYI.pdf”
  EU policy against medicines shortages
• “Yes. Thank you. Dear Minister, we've known each other for years now. I don't have a question. I actually have a comment. So after a long, difficult period, I'm speaking of the period of the pandemic in Europe. With all the people who've died, the problems we had in buying vaccines, I think it's obvious we need to concentrate on common buying and joint buying. We spoke of this issue when I was president of the health committee. The health ministers in the member states can't negotiate alone. There are expensive technologies, and I think that Europe has to work together and begin the work in this sector. If we have medicine, if we have a medicine that is useful against a rare disease affecting children, and it costs $2 million or $2.5 million, then the health ministers now have to act alone in order to access the medicine or the technology. Now, I think that during this mandate, during the Parliament's mandate and the Commission's mandate. I think it's time to launch common negotiations with Big Pharma. I think that the Polish presidency is the right time to show that we are doing something to have lower prices in Europe for medicines, we have to show Europe, we have to show the world that this is something we can do. So if we can prepare these paths, if we can work in this way, then we can face cancer and rare diseases. We need to work together. We mustn't avoid problems. We need to negotiate together. That is one priority. And then there's another point. We've been speaking about it for a long time, but very often patients don't have access. Access to cancer treatments because there's a shortage. We need to organise critical stocks of medicines. This has to be done for our cancer patients. It's important that they have access to these medicines every day. Economic and technological obstacles shouldn't exist. They need access. So, Minister, I think that Poland has to lead these negotiations on buying medicines. It's unacceptable that children depend on a parent's Parents revenues for their medicines. Thank you.”
  Covid-19 vaccines procurement
• “Every patient needs to be diagnosed in due time, on time. They need to be diagnosed and treated and also receive post treatment care. We need to have accessibility of treatment and drugs. We have been talking about that, but we do not do that. We have we do not have common negotiations as regards pricing for the most up state of the art technologies. It must. We must not allow for a situation in which ministers of health of individual member States are left to their own devices, while negotiating a huge amounts of money with pharma Pharmaceutical companies. And this is why we are not really using the most, most advanced methods of treatment. And finally, I understand that we have been introducing and implementing different, uh, regulations also in our committee, but the truth is that we still have no efficient way of protecting patients against temporary lack of various medical substances. And we see that patients who need to be treated day in and day out may not have, may sometimes reach a point where they cannot have access to their medication. We haven't had a very we haven't had efficient control of the way in which we are spending resources. And I would like to also mention that the European Commission has not really defined specific, uh, Earmarked funds for combating cancer.”
  Joint EU procurement of medicines
• “08:50 – 10:10:15): Thank you. Governments are responsible for protecting their citizens and ensuring their security, and this is exactly what's at stake here. We need to ensure security for our citizens. Of course, we need to action climate issues, as has been said. Of course, we need to realize that there can be unknown threats around the corner. We've seen what's happening now in the Middle East, we've seen what's happening in Ukraine, we've seen energy crisis in the past, and we see what's happening in the US. All these are factors which mean we've got to be flexible and responsive, and we've got to be agile because our opponents are, of course, all out to ensure that we aren't. I turned to my Spanish colleagues and asked them, did you foresee what would happen with tariffs? To my French colleagues, did you foresee what was going to happen in the course of the last week or two, all these tariff threats and worse? President Trump has said a lot of things which could have a very adverse impact on us, our content, our citizens, our environment, our lives. And therefore, we've got to ensure that realism is the order of the day. We can't just be blinkered, and we have to be aware of the fact that the world is changing. Thank you.”
  EU-US relations
• “I will be speaking to Mr. Chairman. I'm against. All the silliness that I have heard during the meeting of this commission, Mr. Hauser. Who self defines as a patriot. I suggest for you to go and learn some things because you are highly incompetent. But this does not authorize you to spread silliness in this chamber. Your views are simply stupid, and the words that you have just uttered should have never been said in this room. Let it make me clear. People who use this language, who scare people of vaccines, who suggest that children should not be vaccinated, that vaccines mean death, are people who speak the language of Russian special services. This is their language. So please educate yourself. If you don't want to vaccinate your child, then go out there. Sign it with your name. But please do not present yourself as a patriot. I'm a doctor. For my whole life I have worked in a pediatric pediatric pediatric oncology ward. I saw many children dying in front of my eyes because of cancer. And luckily we are developing better treatment for cancer. But we cannot develop better treatment for stupidity. You should not be here. You are a waste of space.”
  Vaccination
• “Thank you, Madam Chair. I've been looking with a lot of interest at the development of implementation of this plan in Europe for the first time in the history of Parliament to establish a special committee on combating cancer, which I presided. And there we pointed several most important problems of fighting cancer. Of course, those could be multiplied. I've been working on this as a doctor for over 20 years now, and I believe deeply that there are numerous problems that we're facing, but also looking at what we can see in the implementation of the fight of combating cancer. Unfortunately, it's too dispersed. And also there are different areas of activity. Vaccination prevention, exchange of information platforms for this, that and the other. And we have numerous objectives and it's difficult to implement them. And the final result might be insufficient. But I think we should be able to Identify patients for whom the plan was beneficial so that they saw their life improved or they were able to survive in the first place. We pointed out differences in access to modern diagnosis and treatment. And I think EU institutions, the European Commission, should be able to help in negotiating prices for access to modern technologies. I understand there are platforms, there are applications that there is vaccination. All of that is very relevant. But if the final result is such that big pharma companies are implementing new treatments and patients.”
  EU intervention in private pricing of medicines