Pharmaceuticals industry group also seeks better data sharing in cross-border clinical trials
MEPs in the European People’s Party—the European Parliament’s largest political group—have asked the European Commission to explore options for creating a “permanent industry-financed and EU-supported fund” for joint research into and production of vaccines, saying the Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted shortcomings in the EU’s capacities.
“The current [pandemic] situation in Europe makes clear: we must become even faster and think even bigger,” the EPP group said on 9 February. “We want to mobilise all funds, including those available for civil security and health research, to immediately contribute to improve Europe’s production and distribution capacity.”
The group said a €10 billion initiative should be launched to set up additional vaccine production capacities, and that “When possible and reasonable, all production sites must switch to manufacturing Covid vaccines.” It said the EU should work with its international partners to enable scaling up of production through “coordinated technology-transfer…while safeguarding intellectual property rights”.
It also urged closer ties with relevant industries and increased sharing of disease-related data within the bloc, such as on new variants of the virus that causes Covid-19.
On the same day, the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations said in response to a European Commission consultation that improvements are needed on data-sharing for cross-border clinical trials.
“Too many registries are still being developed at the country level, without thinking about the harmonisation and interoperability of data and systems,” Efpia said. It added that, at present, “cross-border participation in clinical trials only occurs very rarely despite a high need”.