The European pharmaceutical industry's future should be seen in the framework of public health rather than as a purely industrial matter, to judge from the views expressed at a European Parliament hearing on the subject in Brussels last month.
Chairing the meeting was Irene Soltwedel-Schafer, rapporteur for the Parliament on the European Commission's 1994 communication on the outlines of an industrial policy for the pharmaceutical sector. Her principal question to the industry speakers was: "is the pharmaceutical industry prepared to commit itself to be guided in its research into and production of medicines by the Council of Europe' Bioethics Convention?"
Other Members of the European Parliament posed wide-ranging questions to the Commission and to drug industry speakers on employment, costs, orphan drugs and the reliability of the data on which the Commission had based its policy document. MEP Alma Metten suggested that the Commission depended too much on the industry for its data and for its arguments. However, with only around five minutes each to make their presentations to the hearing, there was little opportunity for a great deal of detail. Indeed, some questions, such as the important issue of employment within the pharmaceutical sector, did not get a hearing.
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