Belgium and the Netherlands to jointly negotiate purchase of orphan drugs

Minister Edith Schippers of Public Health of the Netherlands and her Belgian counterpart Maggie de Block are teaming up to negotiatiate the prices of expensive drugs with pharmaceutical companies. They have recently issued a statement affirming this collaboration for the purchase of orphan drugs with pharmaceutical groups. Despite the incentives put in place by regulators to produce drugs for rare diseases, pharmaceutical companies often have to recuperate sizeable research costs from a small patient pool, leading to high prices per patient. These prices can be exorbitant which leads to limited access to treatments in many countries.

This is the first instance where two countries are coming together to negotiate prices of orphan drugs and therefore be able to bargain a lower price from the pharmaceutical companies. This decision comes on the heels of the current cost-effectiveness debate and on joint effort to assess properly the added-clinical value of each new drug. This agreement was made on 20 April, 2015 during European Council of Health Ministers in Riga. Representative from both countries believe that working together will enable them to represent more patients and hence be able to “easily negotiate a lower price without sacrificing quality."

A test run will be launched next year, the results of which will be appraised by both health ministers to evaluate the future direction of the initiative. Schippers and De Block hope that other countries will join the initiative after a successful test run as some have showed interest in this initiative in Riga.