Hospital pharmacists across the world are working every day for their patients to ensure that they receive the medication they need to improve their health and to prevent and cure diseases. However, sometimes the medicine that is suited for an individual patient is not accessible. Also, patients are more and more directly affected and increasingly faced with avoidable accessibility and affordability issues. Procurement policies are a tool that can help with addressing these accessibility issues, but only if applied correctly. Negotiations that are driven mainly by pricing parameters often provide major short-term costs savings while having a potential inherent risk of negative consequences such as medicine shortages and a long-term rise of prices in a 'winner takes it all' scenario. Producers do not always have the manufacturing capacity to meet the potential need and vulnerability to the supply chain is added if alternative suppliers drop out of the market due to loss of tender. Thus, while on the one hand having the capability to enable better treatment access procurement policies can on the other hand also be perceived as a treatment barrier, especially when their application leads to market concentration and dependency on one single supplier. The last webinar of the series "Procurement policies – a tool to close the access gap!?" hosted by the European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP) will look at the role procurement is playing in the affordability discussion.

Speakers

Welcome 
Louis Bertin (Director of Professional Development, European Association of Hospital Pharmacists)

Advantages and drawbacks of the current procurement system
Armando Alcobia (Head of Pharmacy at Hospital Garcia de Orta & Member of Portuguese National Formulary Committee)

Patients' views on joint procurements based on the pandemic experience
Charlotte Roffiaen (European Policy Advisor, France Assos Santé)

European cooperation – experiences of the Nordics & the European Health Public Procurement Alliance 
Trine Ann Behnk (Senior Strategic Advisor at Amgros & Vice President for EU Tender Work program, European Health Public Procurement Alliance) and 
Danny Havenith (Director of the Belgian central purchasing body MercurHosp & President, European Health Public Procurement Alliance)

Presentations are followed by a Q&A session with all speakers

Registration

Sign up for the free webinar via the following LINK!