Pharma organisations underline Brexit concerns in letter to negotiators

The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) and seven other UK and European life sciences bodies have jointly written to the UK and EU Brexit negotiators.

The organisations said on Thursday, July 13, that they wanted to underline the importance of securing ongoing cooperation between the UK and EU on medicines as part of the negotiations to agree a new relationship between the UK and the EU.

Some of the other organisations that signed the letter with ABPI were EuropaBio, Medicines for Europe, and The European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations.

In the  letter, the organisations stressed that an agreement was the best way of ensuring that patients across Europe and the UK are able to continue to access medicines, as well as ensuring that there were no adverse impact on public health.

Addressed to Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, and David Davis, the UK’s secretary of state for exiting the EU, letter said: “We feel that it is important to set out our position at this early stage given the significant time pressure to ensure that the necessary arrangements are in place to secure patient access to medicines.”

It was further suggested that the agreement should incorporate an implementation period for pharmaceutical and biotech companies to transition to a new framework.

This, the organisations argued, would allow companies to make necessary arrangements to avoid disruption of medicine availability to patients.

“For example, pharmaceutical and biotech companies may need to submit applications for the transfer of marketing authorisation for specific products, move batch release for products or move personnel into the EU-27 from the UK, all of which would take a significant amount of time.”

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