Juin 24: FHL Info

IML, the grouping of pharmaceutical industries active in Luxembourg, is mobilizing to ensure that patients have faster access to innovative medicines. New therapies and molecules have emerged and are now available on the market. In order for the industry to continue its research and develop new treatments, it needs Luxembourg to commit with it to smoothing the path of access to patients.

The OECD 2023 report - Health at a Glance - indicates that Luxembourg performs better than the OECD average on 95% of indicators, with regard to the country's health status. Life expectancy was notably 82.7 years, or 2.4 years more than the OECD average.

90% of the medicines found in Luxembourg are imported from Belgium, a country in which the arrival of new medicines has caused both the mortality rate and the number of hospitalizations to fall, according to a recent study by Professor F.R Lichtenberg for Pharma.be [1].

Specifically, it was calculated that the increase in the number of medicines in Belgium during the period 1998-2018 had reduced the number of deaths in 2018 by 31%. For the same variables, there was also a decrease in the number of hospitalization days of 26%. The availability of new medicines is therefore the corollary of the state of health of patients. The added value for society is also indisputable.

MORE ACCESSIBLE PROGRESS

In oncology, the arrival of innovative therapies such as immunotherapy, the use of non-steroidal anti-androgens or anti-HER-2 molecules have considerably improved the five-year survival rates of patients. In addition to their greater efficacy, these innovative therapies are also better tolerated than conventional chemotherapy. These are therefore proven developments that improve not only life expectancy, but also the quality of life of patients.

Simplifying the procedures for setting prices and accessing the market for new drugs, and creating a single database of drugs in Luxembourg, would represent two concrete actions to contribute to this progress and support innovation for Luxembourg patients.

IML, through its constant awareness-raising efforts with national and European public health authorities, works every day to ensure that Luxembourg patients can benefit more quickly and more widely from these innovations that bring hope.

[1] Lichtenberg, F. (2023), “The long-run impact of changes in prescription drug sales on mortality and hospital utilization in Belgium, 1998-2019”