Reliance on foreign manufacturers slowed access to personal protective equipment during the pandemic and drew more attention to U.S. dependence on China for critical medicines. The European Union faces the same dilemma and is trying to do something about it. POLITICO’s Carlo Martuscelli reports that most EU countries have rallied around a proposal to create a “Critical Medicines Act” that would bolster domestic manufacturing. The act would encourage production of key drugs, plus pharmaceutical ingredients and basic chemicals, reducing dependence on China and India. The idea appears in a position paper dated Tuesday, drawn up by the Belgian government and backed by 18 other countries, including France and Germany. The EU capitals point out that 40 percent of all pharmaceutical ingredients globally are sourced from China and production for many of those products is concentrated in just a handful of manufacturing sites. “As a result, Europe (and the world) depend on a few manufacturers for a large bulk of their medicines supply,” notes the paper. What does the bill say? The paper doesn’t provide specifics, but indications are the plan is to pour money into the project because the paper says that legislation should follow the example of the European Chips Act and the Critical Raw Materials Act, which direct $47 billion in investments to encourage microchip manufacturing. Other ideas in the paper include a voluntary EU solidarity mechanism that would let countries quickly exchange stocks of drugs during shortages and the creation of a European list of critical medicines for special monitoring. Who’s on board? Besides Belgium, France and Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Czech Republic, Spain, Estonia, Slovenia, Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, Greece, Malta, Poland, Italy and Portugal signed the position paper.
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