{"id":31311,"date":"2023-05-02T19:45:09","date_gmt":"2023-05-02T19:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/group-of-eu-states\/"},"modified":"2023-05-02T19:48:25","modified_gmt":"2023-05-02T19:48:25","slug":"group-of-eu-states","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/group-of-eu-states\/","title":{"rendered":"Group of EU states seeks to reduce dependency on China for pharmaceuticals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Julia Payne<\/p>\n<p>BRUSSELS (Reuters) &#8211;     A group of 19 European Union member states are pushing for measures to reduce the bloc&#8217;s dependency on Chinese imports of pharmaceutical ingredients, a paper dated May 2 showed.<\/p>\n<p>The move comes a week after the European Commission proposed an overhaul of the legislation governing its 136 billion euro ($148 billion) pharmaceuticals industry. <\/p>\n<p>The Commission&#8217;s proposed bill aims to revive investment, reduce shortages and boost access to affordable drugs at a time when health budgets have been drained by the costs of treating COVID-19. <\/p>\n<p>However, the countries backing the paper &#8211; including Belgium, France, Spain and Germany &#8211; want the EU to take more &#8220;drastic steps&#8221; to shore up Europe&#8217;s security of supply for vital drug ingredients with a Critical Medicines Act. <\/p>\n<p>The countries are concerned about the global reliance on China for key ingredients and a handful of manufacturers. Less than five sites manufacture more than 50% of the ingredients that meet European standards.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The EU is becoming increasingly dependent on imports from a few manufacturers and regions&#8230;In 2019, globally more than 40% of APIs (Active pharmaceutical ingredients) were sourced from China,&#8221; the paper said. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Furthermore, almost all API producers depend on China for intermediate inputs.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>The Commission is aiming to put a list of critical medicines that will require more monitoring to ensure shortages are avoided across the bloc. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;For these medicines, the supply must be monitored, the global value chains must be mapped and (potential) suppliers and vulnerabilities identified,&#8221; the paper said.<\/p>\n<p>The list should start with those medications that have repeatedly been in short supply, it said. <\/p>\n<p>The countries would also like to see measures that allow EU member states to rely on each other in &#8220;extreme cases where no alternative suppliers or medicines can be found&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p> (Reporting by Julia Payne; Editing by Angus MacSwan)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/group-of-eu-states\/file-photo-european-union-flags-flutter-outside-the-european-commission-10\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ410RI-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ410RI-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Julia Payne BRUSSELS (Reuters) &#8211; A group of 19 European Union member states are pushing for measures to reduce the bloc&#8217;s dependency on Chinese imports of pharmaceutical ingredients, a paper dated May 2 showed. The move comes a week after the European Commission proposed an overhaul of the legislation governing its 136 billion euro [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":31312,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1213],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-31311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-business","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ410RI-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31311"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31313,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31311\/revisions\/31313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}