Dutch event on increasing pharma market transparency

What steps can the Netherlands take to increase transparency in the pharmaceutical sector? To answer this question, we organized a meeting in Nieuwspoort on 12 June with experts, academics, policymakers from ministries and members of the House of Representatives and their staff. Daniëlle Jansen, then still a member of parliament for the NSC party and now intended demissionary Minister of Health, Welfare and Sport, participated online.

Julia Hochberger of Wemos and Alice Beck of Health Action International presented the findings of our joint report with examples of measures that different countries have taken to increase transparency. Katrina Perehudoff (University of Amsterdam), Maarten Loof (Health Insurers Netherlands), Carin Uyl-de Groot (Erasmus University Rotterdam), Valesca Retèl (Netherlands Cancer Institute) and Leon Bijlmakers (Radboud University Medical Center) then shared their perspective on the theme. After that, all participants, led by Ella Weggen of Wemos, discussed with each other what the Netherlands can do in concrete terms.

Some key insights from the meeting:

• Transparency about the costs and prices of new medicines and government choices about access to these products is essential for citizens’ trust in decision-making.
• Transparency should not only be a goal in itself, but should also lead to fair prices for new medicines.
• Broad international cooperation between countries is needed to achieve transparency in the pharmaceutical sector and the objectives of transparency.
• Transparency on public funding of research and development of medicines is a must in any case, because it concerns the spending of taxpayers’ money. This should also be relatively easy to achieve.

Watch the Zoom recording of the full meeting (in Dutch):