Irish MEPs urged to back pharma industry and reverse damaging EU legislation

By Chris Wheal

April 17, 2024

Candidates and campaigners (L to R): Barry Cowen (Fianna Fail), Pauline O'Reilly (Greens), Oliver O'Connor, chief executive IPHA, Ciaran Mullooly (Independent).

Ireland’s pharmaceutical industry has thrown down the gauntlet to interfering European Parliament legislators with a manifesto designed to inform voters that the sector is under attack ahead of upcoming European elections.

The Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association (IPHA) is behind the first of three similar but locally tailored manifestos. This one was launched at Jazz Pharmaceuticals in Athlone, with several candidates contesting the upcoming European Parliamentary elections in the Midlands-Northwest constituency. Oireachtas members (members of Ireland’s parliament), local politicians and local businesses were also invited. 

In a thinly veiled attack on MEPs voting to reduce manufacturers’ regulatory data protection by six months, the IPHA called for this to be reversed. 

The European Parliament boasted that its legislative package, covering medicinal products for human use, passed overwhelmingly. The new directive was adopted with 495 votes in favour, 57 against and 45 abstentions, while the regulation was adopted with 488 votes in favour, 67 against and 34 abstentions.

MEPs can play a role

Oliver O’Connor, the chief executive of IPHA, said: “Today’s launch of IPHA’s Midlands-Northwest manifesto outlines how Ireland’s MEPs can play a role in ensuring that EU policies support the innovation and IP rights that are required for the development of new medicines by offering predictability and stability, reducing bureaucracy and showing the European Union is open for investments. 

“MEPs will have a crucial role to play in advancing the key asks of the pharmaceutical industry in the next mandate of the European Parliament – particularly through the ENVI (Environment, Public Health and Food Safety) and ITRE (Industry, Research and Energy) parliamentary committees. Our industry stands ready to play its part and work further with policymakers to ensure a competitive pharmaceutical sector which serves all our patients in Ireland and across Europe.” 

Four pillars

The manifesto has four key asks:

1. Better Health for All Europeans: IPHA is calling for policies that prioritise access to new medicines, including vaccines, so that patient outcomes can be improved. Their recommendations include greater enhancement of the European Medicines Agency; ensuring a predictable and streamlined EU framework for joint clinical assessment processes; and supporting an EU Immunisation Strategy that strengthens protection against vaccine-preventable diseases across all generations.
2. Creating Jobs that Matter: Given that 45,000 and 875,000 individuals are directly employed in the sector across Ireland and Europe respectively, the industry wants to create more of these high-value and highly skilled jobs across the region.
3. Supporting Innovation: IPHA believes that innovation is a key factor in attracting new investments – and should be further supported by the strengthening of EU intellectual property rights for medicines innovation; and through greater pan-European and cross-border cooperation for the exchange of evidence-based information. 
4. Encouraging Sustainability: Acknowledging that climate change is a critical challenge, IPHA is calling for continued financial and advisory supports to further encourage sustainability initiatives across Ireland and Europe; as well as ensuring that environmental risk assessments are implemented at production level, rather than marketing authorisation per product, so as to avoid creating barriers to access for new treatments for patients.

Damaging to Ireland’s health

O’Connor put the IPHA’s concerns in context. “While each country in the EU organises its own health service, the EU has a key role in authorising and setting quality controls for medicines, and creating the conditions for research, development and jobs in the sector,” he said. 

“Every region in Ireland benefits from these jobs and investment; nearly every new medicine in our health service is approved by the European Medicines Agency; and every time a medicine is dispensed, it is checked under EU systems.

“The pharmaceutical industry has invested heavily in Ireland in recent years, but Europe as a whole has lost a quarter of its global pharmaceutical investment in the last 20 years. This has had a knock-on effect for R&D, innovation and, crucially, patient access to innovative medicines.”

Local focus

The IPHA will launch manifestos in the South on Friday 19 April and in Dublin on Friday 26 April. Each manifesto contains a snapshot of the pharmaceutical sector in the constituency.

The Midlands-Northwest document included information covering: 

• Pfizer’s Newbridge LEED certified osmotic facility, which had cut natural gas consumption.
• MSD Dunboyne’s drug substance facility and new research centre, speeding up how long it takes to bring a medicine to market.
• AbbVie winning the Green Pharmaceutical Award at the annual Green Award and named Sustainable Business Team of the Year at the 2023 Sustainable Business Awards.
• Jazz marking 20 years since the company’s founding and 10 years in Athlone, with the site supporting both drug development and commercial manufacturing across neuroscience and oncology.
• AbbVie sponsoring the Sligo GAA and the Sligo Ladies Gaelic Football Association teams.
• IPHA member companies in the region nurturing STEM skills among young people in primary and secondary schools through programmes such as Junior Achievement Ireland.

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