The European Parliament voted last week on a draft new law relating to the transparency of measures regulating the prices of medicinal products for human use and their inclusion in the scope of public health insurance system (see here for the resolution). The new law intends to introduce fair practices across the EU applying to purchasing 'generic' medicines (which should be available two years after the original branded medicine), making sure that their prices are transparently set (which should lower them) and that reimbursement through insurance systems would be easy and quick to claim. For example, a 60-day time limit to decide on the pricing and reimbursement is to be introduced. Such a time-limit would prohibit companies marketing the originally branded medicines to delay the introduction on the market of the generic medicines.
