LETTER TO THE MINISTER OF HEALTH

Esteemed Minister:

First of all, we would like to congratulate you on your appointment as Minister of Health, Consumer Affairs and Social Welfare. It is a source of great pride with enormous challenges, in pharmaceutical, health and social policy, which needs to be addressed urgently. Therefore, we are at your disposition—as a civil society movement for universal drug access—to construct proposals and take the necessary steps to reach said objectives.

Secondly, we would like to take this opportunity to present the It’s not Healthy campaign. The main task of this campaign is universal access to affordable, effective and quality medicines and the transformation of the current biomedical R&D model. The initiative is promoted by the Rights to Health Foundation, Doctors of the World, the Collegiate Medical Organization of Spain (CMO), the Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU), the Association of Fair Drug Access, the Spanish Society of Public Health and Health Administration, the Confederation of Consumers and Users, No Thank You and is supported by OXFAM and ISGlobal. In addition, the campaign has recruited 30 more organizations that support and subscribe to the manifesto.

We would like to set up a meeting with you, to present the campaign and discuss the possibility of a collaboration. There is an urgent need to improve pharmaceutical policies by implementing transparency mechanisms and improve the drug pricing system, as we have been asking for over three years. At the population level we particularly need fair measures to slow the exorbitant growth of innovative drugs prices, keep detailed accounts of public expenditure for citizens and contribute to the sustainability of the health system without cutting back on health benefits.

After gathering your declarations from your parliamentary headquarters appearance on October 10th, we could not be more in agreement with you on highlighting the importance of the current moment, where important CAR-T therapy decisions will be made. We have been advocating for this for over a year in our communication with pharmaceutical companies, the previous government and in the our latest report “Cancer Drugs: high prices and inequality.” Pharmaceutical spending is one of the principle bottleneck issues for the autonomous communities. In the last decade, spending on hospital medicines has increased significantly, reaching 6.448 million euros in 2017 and with an extremely elevated opportunity cost for the rest of the health system. Likewise, a portion of public pharmaceutical spending in pharmacy offices has been driven into patient pockets through copayments.

As a vast and diverse movement for drug access, the It’s not Healthy campaign hopes you will be able to find a place in your agenda and be able to receive us.

We thank you for your time in advance and look forward to your response.

Photo: Twitter @Sanidadgob