Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-09-06-Speech-2-346"
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"en.20050906.36.2-346"2
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"Mr President, although the success of this legislation has been mentioned, it is something that should be emphasised again and again. I shall tell you in a minute why I find the pedantry, and sometimes even the simplicity, of this debate distasteful.
We have tabled amendments in committee – I have even tabled them myself – stating the need for this legislation to enter into force more quickly, the reason being that we have waited so long for it, on behalf of the children in the European Union. In addition – and this I say for Mrs Toia’s benefit – the role of the Paediatric Committee, which is to be set up in accordance with the legislation, must be enhanced. We have an interest in a strong Paediatric Committee, and what is more one which takes the lead.
I agree with Mr Bowis, Mrs Grossetête and all the others who have said that we need the MICE research programme, another EU initiative. This must be given a proper basis in law, and the proper place for it is in the Seventh Framework Research Programme. I would ask Commissioner Verheugen to urge the Commission that scope and funding be made available for this within the Seventh Framework Research Programme.
I have said that this is a great success, and so I regret that this success is not being given due emphasis in this debate. I find it cheap, pitiful and even shameful that this debate has focused almost exclusively on the extension of patent protection. It is interesting that there has been no discussion of the ten-year extension of data protection for medicinal products whose patent protection has expired: ‘PUMA’, as it is known.
We should ask ourselves why this is not being discussed: because it creates a level playing field, as it were, between generic medicinal products and pharmaceutical manufacturers engaged in research. Not a single word has been spoken about it: despite going much further – ten-year data protection – it evidently enjoys widespread approval. Yet a dispute of which I have seldom seen the like in this House has developed about a six-month period to be given to those pharmaceutical manufacturers engaged in research who still have a patent, or are applying for one. I would ask all of those who have a fixed opinion on this whether they have spoken to patients’ representatives; I have. I have also spoken to parents with sick children. They could not understand it. They could not understand this discussion, some of which they followed in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety. They were just saying, ‘We want these medicines for our children’.
If what Commissioner Verheugen said does happen, and there is an incentive to procure more medicinal products more quickly, it will be marvellous; it will be exactly what we want. We do not care whether someone earns half a million more or less in the process. There should be considerable benefits to research, and children should also stand to gain. That is what patients’ and parents’ representatives are saying.
I am a relatively long-standing Member of this House, and do not want to see it split into two, with the countries and representatives of countries which have no research-oriented pharmaceutical industry but only a generics industry objecting that six months is too long, and others saying the opposite. Our sole concern should be doing what is best for patients, which is what the Commission is proposing. The majority of my group will be supporting that, and so shall I."@en1
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