EIJC17 & Dataharvest

Poor countries often pay more for their medicines or vaccines than rich countries. In theory, the free market contributes to better accessibility to medicines – but in practice, it opens up an unregulated space for companies to make profit on medicines and vaccines, barely taking into consideration their responsibility towards public health. Accessing information on how big pharma companies and drug distributors react, ignore local regulations, and negotiate prices with governments, is difficult and shows the opacity of this market. Eva Belmonte (Civio.es) will talk about Medicamentalia, a global investigation about prices of medicines and vaccines. She will explain the pool procurement mechanism and how Europe signed an agreement to buy together medicines, but never used it. The session will be followed by a networking discussion among participants interested in or working on similar issues.