On 25th April 2024 in Brussels, ESMO took part in the first meeting of the Critical Medicines Alliance (CMA) Forum aimed at exchanging the views between European stakeholders and the European Commission (EC) about priorities for action and proposed solutions to strengthen the supply of critical medicines in the EU, to prevent and combat their shortages and ensure EU’s strategic autonomy. ESMO Chair of Cancer Medicines Committee (CMC), Dr. Dario Trapani has been nominated to represent the society to the Alliance.
The CMA was established in January 2024 as a consultative mechanism by the EC’s Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA), set up for an initial period of 5 years to provide an inclusive and transparent platform to the EU decision-makers by pooling the expertise and resources of its members and to determine how vulnerabilities in the supply chains could be best addressed.
The first meeting of the CMA Forum started with a video message by the EC President, Ursula von der Leyen, which focused on the role of the CMA in delivering the EU mission on a health union, including addressing medicines shortages. The event continued with a presentation of the Alliance by Olivier Girard, Head of Unit Medical Countermeasures (Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority - HERA), who featured the main objectives of the CMA, the respective roles of the Forum, the Steering Board and highlighted the next steps. Subsequently, the meeting focused on the presentation of a pilot exercise conducted by HERA on supply chain vulnerability assessment for the first tranche of medicines included in the Union List of Critical Medicines (EU CML), which examined 11 medicines. The event followed with a panel discussion on critical medicines, presentation of the two Alliance’s Working Groups (‘Strengthening EU Manufacturing’ and ‘Diversification of Supply Chains’), and concluded by an open discussion on Members’ expectations for the Alliance. The key speakers included representatives of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), HERA, industry actors and associations, civil society and national authorities. The next meeting of the CMA Forum will take place at the end of 2024 to discuss concrete recommendations of the Working Groups and the Strategic Plan prepared by the CMA Steering Board.
To further address the frequent lack of cancer medicines, ESMO is a member of the European Medicines Agency (EMA) Policy Officers Group (POG) and is currently contributing to its draft paper on medicines shortages. In addition, ESMO has also produced several reports and a call to action, including:
- Cancer medicines shortages in Europe: Policy recommendations to prevent and manage shortages (2017);
- Call to Action (2019), requesting the EU to make a political commitment to tackle inexpensive essential medicines shortages;
- Country reports: Belgium, Bulgaria, Finland, Germany, Romania. The 5 country profiles demonstrate a lack of data on the magnitude of the issue and show that European and international collaborations are key to facilitate the exchange of products in short supply.
For further information, please contact: publicpolicy@esmo.org