Pharmaceutical traders say EU legislation is a threat to their business in China

European Union-based companies engaged in parallel trading in pharmaceutical products say that the European Commission's latest proposals on drug repackaging (Marketletter October 27 and page 12 this issue) are a threat to around 100 enterprises in the sector, and especially to their growing international trade with China.

A modest reform to the EU regulations on drug information, which is expected to be approved shortly (though to the research-based sector not soon enough) has generated a storm of protest, not only from the re-exporters but no fewer than 20 European associations, including the consumers' group BEUC and a number of health care and nursing organizations.

They have written to Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso calling on him to reconsider a regulation which they say jeopardizes patients and consumers. The proposal includes a clause that bars drug re-export or parallel trading enterprises from re-packaging the products for other markets. The companies buy drugs in one country and sell them in another to benefit from price differentials. The regulation would prevent them inserting a patient package insert in the language of the customers, which the companies say is an essential requirement for commercializing these products.