European Union negotiators on Tuesday reached an agreement on rules aimed at bolstering the bloc's supply chains for essential medicines and reducing its dependence on drug manufacturers outside the bloc.

The rules aim to combat drug shortages that have occasionally affected the bloc in recent years, with pharmacies running low on painkillers, antibiotics and children's fever medicine.

Cypriot Health Minister Neophytos Charalambides, whose country holds the rotating EU Council presidency, said: "With today's agreement, we are taking practical action to reduce our vulnerabilities, diversify supply chains and strengthen Europe's capacity to produce critical medicines and their ingredients closer to home."

Charalambides said people should no longer have to worry about whether they could obtain essential medicines from their pharmacy or hospital.

The agreed rules aim, among other things, to make it easier to use public funding to support the production of such medicines.

The new rules, which still require approval from EU member states and the European Parliament, foresee giving priority to medicines manufactured in Europe in cases of public procurement. So-called strategic projects would also receive faster approval and more rapid access to funding.

The rules would also allow several countries to join together to buy important medicines, particularly those used to treat rare illnesses — an area where the market is deficient, according to the European Commission.

The Commission, which suggested amending the rules in 2025, has identified several reasons for drug shortages: bottlenecks in the supply of active ingredients and the concentration of production in a very small number of countries, as became apparent during the COVID-19 pandemic.

EU health ministers said last year that some 80% to 90% of medicines used in Europe come from Asia, above all China, despite some 900,000 people employed in the EU pharmaceutical sector.

Source: www.dw.com