Non-Rx Drug Market: Variations In Europe

Despite all the differences and all existing problems, the concept of responsible self-medication nowadays receives considerable political support, and the regulatory environment for non-prescription medicines has improved, concluded Hubertus Cranz, director of the European Propriety Medicines Manufacturers' Association at the organization's 32nd annual meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, May 29 to June 1.

The difference now and when the AESGP was set up more than 30 years ago, he noted, was that we are no longer discussing self-medication under the general question "yes or no." Today, we are moving towards establishing an active promotion of responsible self-medication and accepting it in a more or less passive manner.

This trend in Europe, he added, is being influenced in part by people's willingness to take more responsibility for their own health and also by the ongoing problems of financing social security systems. This financial pressure, he warned, is likely to become more severe when European Union member states try to reduce their public expenditure in order to be in line with the Maastricht criteria for entering into a European Monetary Union.