Controversial report spells doom for EU pharmaceutical parallel trade industry

摘要

Should the recommendations of an unashamedly one-sided, recently-released report be taken up by the European Commission's Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry (DG Enterprise), the pharmaceutical parallel trade industry could cease to exist. Hie report, published by the consultancy group Europe Economics in May 2008, but only made public by DG Enterprise this month, has resolutely backed calls for a ban on repackaging and relabelling.The report notes that prohibiting both repackaging and relabelling, would dramatically reduce the volume of parallel trade and adds that the initial social impacts of this option would include the loss of j obs and income for those involved in this sector. There would be possible increases in prices paid by healthcare providers in importing countries and other distributors currently profiting from parallel' trade - including exporters, wholesalers and pharmacists - would lose income, it continues.