EBE and EuropaBio respond to European Commission consultation on rare diseases

The European Association of Bioindustries (EuropaBio) and the European Biopharmaceutical Enterprises' joint task force on Orphan Medicinal Products has welcomed the initiative of the European Commission to conduct a public consultation on rare diseases. Erik Tambuyzer, the task force's chairman, in a letter to the EC's Health and Consumer Protection Directorate General, wrote that "patients with rare diseases have the same right to treatment and prevention as any other patients." He noted that market access for Orphan Medicinal Products is "creating the current bottleneck."

The intention of the European Union's Orphan Medicinal Product Regulation was to provide "timely and equitable access to therapies for patients with rare diseases and to balance risk by providing economic and other incentives to industry to develop such therapies," Dr Tambuyer added. However, he stressed that drug companies "involved in the orphan drugs field believe that more emphasis should be placed on why access to existing treatments for rare diseases is a problem."

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