Dutch Minister Bruno Bruins (Medical Care and Sports) has called on countries worldwide to join the International Horizon Scanning Initiative. He made this appeal recently during a United Nations (UN) summit in New York, and eight countries have now joined.
The collaboration, led in part by the Netherlands, has now started and is intended to keep medicines affordable. The nine countries will share all their information about a new drug "intensively" with each other. This way, they better understand what lies ahead and have a stronger position in negotiations with manufacturers.
The so-called International Horizon Scanning Initiative (IHSI) also includes Belgium, Ireland, Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, and Switzerland. The Netherlands, Belgium, and Ireland had already taken the lead. They continue to recruit other countries to strengthen the alliance. Later, the countries will also share information about new medical devices, such as pacemakers, patches, and prostheses.
Earlier this year, the Netherlands threatened to publicly shame manufacturers of extremely expensive medicines if they could not explain why they charged such high prices for their drugs. This was done in an open letter published in a national newspaper. What particularly bothers the Dutch minister is that some medicines cost more than one hundred thousand euros per patient per year without a clear explanation for their high price.
Research shows that in the Netherlands, compared to other European countries, much more is often paid for new medicines. The price is sometimes more than fifty percent higher than in other countries.