BioWorld International Correspondent

BRUSSELS, Belgium - The European Union is aiming to impose tougher controls on drug information in 2008. Claiming that it wants to "put the interests of patients first," it will introduce new legislation to reduce the differences it has identified in access to information across the 27 countries of the EU "to the availability of good-quality, objective, reliable and nonpromotional information."

The plan envisions a framework to provide all EU citizens with information "about the benefits and the risks of their medicines, and which maintains the confidence of citizens, regulators and health care professionals."

The current EU ban on direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicines will be maintained, along with what the EU called "a clear distinction between advertising and non-promotional information."

The European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) issued a positive interpretation of the EU plan.

Alessandro Banchi, CEO of Boehringer Ingelheim, of Ingelheim, Germany, and an EFPIA board member, said the industry was "encouraged" at what he described as the "commitment toward improving patient access to health information in Europe."

The EFPIA said it is not dismayed by the continued ban on direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicines. "EFPIA does not consider U.S.-style direct-to-consumer advertising as an appropriate model for Europe," it said in a statement.

The EFPIA said that pharmaceutical companies are a valuable source of information about health and medicines, and that the European regulatory framework "needs to be modernized in order to make it possible for them to respond to citizens' legitimate right to benefit from such information, alongside other key stakeholders such as physicians, pharmacists, nurses and patient groups."

Against Europe's multilingual background - with 21 official language within the EU, and many other languages still spoken in regions across the continent - the EFPIA said that "access for all EU citizens and patients to nonpromotional health and medicines information in their language must be improved."

Meanwhile, on Dec. 20, the EU also put the final seal of approval on its scheme to support innovative medicines. (See BioWorld International, Dec. 19, 2007.)

The Innovative Medicines Initiative, a €2 billion partnership between the EU and the European pharmaceutical industry, was formally adopted by EU ministers to fund pan-European public-private partnerships in biomedical research.