Ceremonial Launch of the Critical Medicines Alliance
The Critical Medicines Alliance aims to enhance the security of critical medicines supply through collaborative efforts involving government representatives, pharmaceutical industry stakeholders, health professionals, and civil society.
Last year, 23 Member States supported a non-paper proposing ways to improve Europe's medicine supply security. The document proposed short, medium, and long term measures, notably:
- establishing a voluntary solidarity mechanism to help, as a last resort, alleviate acute shortages in Member States;
- accelerating work on a Union list of critical medicinal products whose supply chains must be checked for vulnerabilities;
- to explore a Critical Medicines Act ensuring patients have access to key medicines and reducing dependencies for critical medicines and ingredients.
This call to action to ensure adequate availability and production of critical medicines and components was reiterated by EU leaders at the June 2023 European Council and reinforced by the October 2023 Granada Declaration. In response, the Commission issued a Communication on 'Addressing Medicine Shortages in the EU', announcing notably the establishment of a Critical Medicines Alliance to provide a strategic framework for developing practical solutions to enhance security of medicines supply and adding an industrial pillar to the European Health Union.
The Alliance will bring together all relevant stakeholders including government representatives from the EU and third countries, pharmaceutical industry, health professionals and civil society to promote structural support for critical medicines supply from an industrial point of view.
This launch event will mark a significant step forward in addressing the challenges posed by medicine shortages and ensuring the availability and production of critical medicines and components within the European Union.
We cordially invite you to attend the ceremonial launch of the Critical Medicines Alliance which will take place at the Egmont Palace on 24 April 2024, from 14:50 to 15:30.
The event brings together the European Ministers of Health and Industry, European Commissioners, Chief Executive Officers of participating companies and Presidents of participating civil society organisations to celebrate the start of the Critical Medicines Alliance and to discuss the way forward.
During the event, a press conference will be organised from 14:50 to 15:30. The accreditation desk will open from 13:45 to 15:00, while the media centre will remain open until 17:30.
We invite all press representatives who already have a verified badge, which is valid for the whole duration of the Belgian Presidency, to confirm their participation on their profile on the official accreditation platform by ticking the box of this specific event.
Please note that registration closes 24 hours before the start of the event, which means that for this specific event you will have to be registered no later than 23.04.2024 at 14:50. Once your registration for this specific event has been confirmed, the QR code on your verified badge will be automatically updated allowing you to enter the venue.
If you don’t have a verified badge yet, we invite you to create your profile on the official accreditation platform as soon as possible.
For all press inquiries, please contact us on mediaEU2024BE@diplobel.fed.be