Survey finds disparities in drug access across EU

The European Union's member states have displayed considerable disparities in ensuring access to drugs, according to the Sweden-based health care consultancy, the Health Consumer Powerhouse. The biggest changes in the Euro Health Consumer Index for 2007, the third such study, found that Austria had risen from eighth in 2006 to top ranking this year, while Estonia climbed from 20th to 12th during the same period. The Index covers all aspects of health care, including access to drugs.

Concerning patient access to pharmaceutical products, the ranking of 27 EU countries plus Norway and Switzerland found that six of them had an identical 10 out of 12 score. These were: Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. Apart from Ireland (16th) and Spain (14th), the other countries all ranked in the top 10 overall for health care consumer friendliness.

Arne Bjornberg, the HCP's director of international indexes, based at the group's Brussels, Belgium offices, explained that the study utilized four criteria for ranking countries on access to pharmaceutical products. The first was the degree of subsidy for prescription drugs, with three levels: >90%, 60%-90% and <60%. The second criteria was whether a layman-adapted complete pharmacopeia is readily-available to the general public (on-line or in print). The three categories were: yes, yes but not comprehensive and no. The third was the speed of deployment of new cancer drugs. Here the data, which came from Sweden's Karolinska Institute, has been previously reported in the Marketletter (Marketletter May 21). The options recorded were faster, close to or slower than the EU average. The final element used in calculating the rankings was the delay between registration of a drug and its inclusion in the national reimbursement system. This produced a choice of <150 days, 150-300 days and >300 days. The source material for the Index was largely derived from Europcare 4 and IMS Health data.