IPEMED’s participation to the 5th Emerging market access conference

IPEMED has been invited to do a presentation of the pharma markets in the Maghreb countries during one of the round tables of the 5th Emerging market acces conference that took place on  October 8th, 2014 in the Cité internationale universitaire in Paris. The aim of the presentation was to give information on the general framework in which pharma markets are evolving and also to present IPEMED’s recommendations and actions in order to foster a greater integration of the pharma markets of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, as one of its effects will be a greater market access.

Based on the analysis from IPEMED’s repport on the pharma markets of the Maghreb countries, Macarena Nuno, IPEMED’s project officer presented :
-    The common challenges faced by the health systems of the Maghreb countries (demographic, epidemiological, organisational and democratic transitions) and
-    The specificites of pharma markets of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia as well as common factors that are strong leverages to foster regional integration (growing comsuption of medecines, increasing national productions, governments will of developping national production of generic drugs,  existence of specific market regulations and centralised purchase procedures, etc.)

After this general introduction, a discussion took place on the possibility of implementing a marketing authorisation (MA) harmonisation, as this idea is one of IPEMED’s recommendations to foster a greater integration of pharma markets. IPEMED’s experts have identified two ways of doing this. The first one is through the implementation of a common marketing authorisation in the Maghreb countries, for example getting inspired from what has been done in the West African economic and monetary union with its centralised MA procedure. The other option is by fostering mutual recognition between countries, like it is being done at the European level with the MRP.

To enhace cooperation on this field, IPEMED is working on the implementation of a “5+5 Dialogue” on health. To achieve this, IPEMED has deployed two actions : the creation of a technical workgroup on health on Western Mediterranean and a lobbying approach on Foreign affairs and Health Secretaries of state of the 10 partners countries. The technical workgroup has already met twice (March 2013, January 2014) and it has been informed of the interest of such a harmonisation procedure. Concerning the lobbying strategie, IPEMED has had a lot of success as in the last foreign affairs meeting of the “5+5 Dialogue” that took place in Lisbon in May 2014, the partner countries were pleased to see the creation of the technical workgroup and encourage the Moroccan administration, who pays a very actif role in this field, to organise the first “5+5 Dialogue on health” in 2015.

Maghreb countries have common health challenges that could be tackled collectively. Health cooperation encouraging a greater integration of the pharma markets is possible. It is up to public authorities to go beyond political differences and seize the opportunity.