Proposition 54K3456

Proposition de loi modifiant le Code de droit économique en ce qui concerne le recours à des licences obligatoires pour les médicaments.

General information ¶

Authors

PVDA | PTB Raoul Hedebouw, Marco Van Hees

Submission date

Jan. 11, 2019

Official page

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Status

Rejected

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

medicinal product health policy health care intellectual property health costs patents licence social security public health health insurance

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

CD&V LE ∉ Open Vld N-VA MR PP VB

Voted to reject

Groen Vooruit Ecolo PS | SP DéFI PVDA | PTB

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

March 21, 2019 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

I am referring to the written report.

Here is a draft law on a very important topic. This proposal is supported by a petition that, in just a few days, collected 7,000 signatures. It is part of a fight initiated by Nelson Mandela in the late 1990s. He fought against the multinational pharmaceutical companies that prevented the production of cheap AIDS medicines in South Africa. A proposal to ensure that the survival of some patients in Belgium is not gambled on the blackmail of multinational companies of the drug, having as their sole objective only to continue to make billions of profits. Novartis makes 8.6 billion euros of profit, and Pfizer 12.3 billion. This is a proposal that a treatment that can be obtained for 300 euros in India does not cost 25,000 euros in Belgium.

This is the first draft law of the PTB on which there was a vote in committee, at the end of the legislature. A negative vote. Before becoming a member, I thought that the debate on such a bill was a dense exercise, with arguments, counterarguments, references to experts, studies, experiences in other countries. A debate at the end of which the one who had the best arguments could take the adherence of others.

But in order that there are arguments and counterarguments in a debate, there must already be a debate. What was this debate? I read the report. After my introduction on the proposal, the discussion: "Mr. Damien Thiéry (MR) notes that the bill to be studied aims to amend the Code of Economic Law. The question is whether we should either ask for an opinion from the Economic Committee or return the text to the aforementioned committee.”

Mr. Thiery, I timed: nine and a half seconds. You have even added with some contempt: "It's all that inspires me this proposal." In any case, you have had the merit of intervening, unlike others. So we had the right to a nine-and-a-half-second debate on a topic that I think is ⁇ important.

Another surprise was the vote. Article 1 was voted: eight against and two for. This article states: "This law regulates a matter referred to in Article 74 of the Constitution."It is a little like saying, "Today it is March 21" and that eight of ten deputies voted against this statement, which is nothing but the expression of legislative formalism. The most incredible thing is that after voting against this article, there was no more debate and even more vote on the whole proposal!

This is how the debates take place, or rather what the absence of debate in this hall that some call “temple of democracy”, but which I think above all is a low-intensity democracy.

This proposal addresses a serious topic, as it concerns people suffering from rare diseases. The press has revealed some concrete cases of patients facing the rapacity of multinational pharmaceutical companies. I think of the story of Jean-François, who suffers from a rare genetic disease, the XCT, which affects the brain. He was deprived of treatment, because the pharmaceutical company that had obtained the monopoly had increased the price, making it go from 38 euros to 12,500 euros, thus making the treatment unpaid.

Another story is that of Valentina, a little girl with a rare disease that affects bones, heart and lungs. In order to get the state to reimburse its medicine, the pharmaceutical firm has chanted. She stopped offering the drug free of charge to two patients, including Valentina, if social security did not refund the drug. It happens that these pharmaceutical companies can fix the price of a medicine themselves as long as it is under patent.

Health Minister Maggie De Block says that in Belgium, she can do nothing, or not much, to remedy this kind of situation. However, it is itself that contributes to the sharp rise in the price of medicines, since it applies the procedure known as "Article 81". This allows to establish agreements directly between the Cabinet of the Minister and the pharmaceutical industry. The price is secretly set and relates to innovative medicines. Last year, the cabinet of the minister would have granted one billion euros for medicines of this type, including sofosbuvir against hepatitis C.

Let us take the example of this medicine. In Belgium, the cost of a single treatment now stands at 25,000 euros, while in India, where the principle of compulsory licenses has been applied, this same drug costs 300 euros the treatment. When a malversation is found in the head of the multinational pharmaceutical company, the production of this medicine is imposed by the firm that will be able to produce it at the lowest price. This is 25,000 euros in Belgium, compared to 300 euros in India.

With this proposal, we wanted to introduce this principle in our country. This right to grant binding licenses was born in the late 1990s, when Nelson Mandela, strongly supported by numerous popular movements and NGOs around the world, engaged in the struggle against the multinational pharmaceutical companies, which prevented Indian companies from exporting cheap AIDS medicines to South Africa.

This proposal provided that the Ministry of Health could, on its own initiative, impose mandatory licenses for a medicine. In this regard, we would explicitly mention the hypothesis of situations where serious indications indicate that the selling prices of the medicinal product practiced by these multinational companies are disproportionate to the production costs.

This proposal could have addressed these exorbitant price problems of medicines for rare diseases. It would have solved a fundamental problem that these families face and, at the same time, that of the surplus cost often imposed in the form of blackmail by multinational companies of the drug to our social security.

But apparently, a majority of the right-wing MPs in the Health Committee did not want it. There is still a possibility of voting against the rejection of this bill, even though, unfortunately, I do not make myself much illusions about the will of the right-wing deputies of this assembly to really take care of the health of patients and that of social security.