Pharmaceutical lobbies are in excellent health

Fedaisf editorial staff

September 2, 2015

Investimenti in ascesa, trattamenti privilegiati e affari a porte chiuse. Un report smaschera le dinamiche e i rapporti tra i gruppi di interessi dell’industria farmaceutica con l’elite politica europea.

Martino Pillitteri – 02/09/2015 – LIFE

The recipe that pharmaceutical industry lobbies prescribe to safeguard the financial health of their customers is about 15 times more expensive than that of civil society actors working for public health. But above all it guarantees privileged access to the decision-making process such as participation in counseling groups and meetings with the decision makers of the European institutions. As if to say: while the common patient waits his turn in the emergency room, the lobbies go directly to the operating room and are operated on by the head physician.

An example? There EFPIA extension (European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations) took home more than 50 meetings with the Juncker Commission during the first four and a half months of its mandate. The study revealsBig money and close ties behind Big Pharma’s Brussels lobby efforts” (Lots of money and close ties, the lobbying efforts of the pharmaceutical industry in Brussels) edited and published by Corporate Europe Observatory, a non-profit organization whose mission is to expose the influence of lobbies on the European establishment that counts.

L’influenza della lobby farmaceutica è in grado di rendere sempre più sottile la linea che separa il legislatore dai diretti interessati. «Questo rapporto quasi cooperativo» sostiene Yannis Natsis from the TransAtlantic Consumer Dialogue, "emphasizes the work of the independent monitors they carry out on new drugs and their cost". Translated into practice, the pharmaceutical industry, through the intermediation of lobbies, is essentially trying to make the drug development path simpler and shorter, or moving from clinical trials to product approval by the competent bodies by cutting the "regulatory barriers” in a way that suits your business model. According to the study, questa dinamica minaccia l’interesse pubblico sulle questioni di accesso ai medicinali, costi dei farmaci e sicurezza, just to name a few.

In order to achieve its goals, large pharmaceutical companies use sophisticated methods of communication and public relations. One example is language that equates the profit-making goals of private companies with public health benefits. This happens through l’uso onnipresente di termini e slogan come “Innovazione”, “Research Based on Industry Research” (anche se la maggior parte delle ricerca avviene nelle università finanziate dai contribuenti), e “Intellectual Property Rights“, che in realtà non sono diritti, ma piuttosto, privilegi di monopolio concessi dai governi che consentono di far salire i prezzi.

Behind the term “Innovation”, specifica lo studio, si nasconde un qualsiasi nuovo farmaco sul mercato che non ha alcun valore terapeutico aggiuntivo rispetto ai farmaci gia presenti sul mercato. Così “innovazione” viene a significare la vendita di nuovi farmaci, e non la scoperta e la porduzione di nuovi trattamenti.

Policy prescriptions. the firepower of the EU pharmaceutical lobby and implications for public health

Lobby: here are the companies that influence European decisions