Big Pharma in the EU : Dutch healthcare institute "Zorginstituut Nederland" says drugs companies are effectively blackmailing officials by refusing to be transparent about their prices

The Dutch healthcare institute "Zorginstituut Nederland" said recently insurers should stop paying for expensive drugs if pharmaceutical companies continue to refuse to say how they arrive at their pricing.

The institute, which assesses the efficacy of new drugs and advises the government on whether they should be included in the basic healthcare policy, says the drugs companies are effectively blackmailing officials by refusing to be transparent about their prices.

Last years June announcement that Ireland is joining the Beneluxa Initiative on Pharmaceutical Policy might suggest renewed vigour for the drive to equip national governments with more clout in their pricing negotiations with international drug firms.

The likelihood is that better-informed health authorities will be better equipped to confront drug firms. Similarly, drug firms will be obliged to present more cogent justifications for their pricing ambitions/

 As has been proven in the US, Pharmaceutical companies. also known there as "Big Pharma, can not be left operating with little or no strict Governmental controls.

In the US this has led to a steady rise in the cost of pharmaceutical products for consumers.

 It is more than obvious the Pharmaceutical industry must be closely monitored in two major areas: a) Their pricing structures and practices, and b) Providing far more transparency in their marketing and sales activities, specifically as it relates to the insurance and medical industry.

In Europe the initiatives of the Beneluxa Initiative on Pharmaceutical Policy certainly are a step in the right direction, but unfortunately Government support and action has been extremely slow, while the Pharmaceutical lobby in the EU Parliament, however, like it has been in the US Congress and Senate, has been vigorous and very effective.

The Digest Group                    

Almere-Digest
EU-Digest
Insure-Digest 
Turkish-Digest 

For additional information, including advertising rates:
e-mail: Freeplanet@protonmail.com

The Dutch healthcare institute Zorginstituut Nederland said in February insurers should stop paying for expensive drugs if pharmaceutical companies continue to refuse to say how they arrive at the price. The institute, which assesses the efficacy of new drugs and advises the government on whether they should be included in the basic healthcare policy, says the drugs companies are effectively blackmailing officials by refusing to be transparent about their prices. Leadiant Biosciences told DutchNews.nl in a statement: ‘We follow the discussion and the AMC initiative. Bringing medicines for rare diseases like CTX to patients and families in need requires a collaboration between industry and health systems, including governments, regulators, insurers, advocacy groups, and health professionals. ‘At the heart of the issue is ensuring the medicines we develop and deliver meet the appropriate standards of safety, efficacy and quality – and are accessible to the people who need them. We will continue to engage with the relevant stakeholders on solutions that address these needs.’ The company did not comment on the reason behind the price hike.

Read more at DutchNews.nl:

The EU and TTIP: Secret document reveals EU offer to drop 97 percent of tariffs - Justus von Daniels and Marta Orosz

We now know that the TTIP negotiations entered a decisive phase on October 15, 2015. That’s when US and EU representatives laid their cards on the table, exchanging offers to cut taxes on imports from each other. Up until then, the US had only broached hypothetical reductions; now they were openly offering to remove 87.5 percent of tariffs completely.

That was more than the EU expected. European negotiators had to agree a better offer, or risk derailing the deal. A week later, they did came up with a new proposal: reductions in 97 percent of tariff categories.

The EU’s secret offer, which CORRECTIV has seen in its entirety, is made up of 181 pages of densely-printed text and can be found here. It’s got almost 8,000 categories: Every species of fish, every chemical has its own tariff category. Importing a parka? Wool, or polyester?

Trade deals are like poker games. Europe’s big offer comes with a big hope: That the US will open up its public bidding process to European firms. That way, European construction companies could bid on contracts to build US highways, or BMW could sell cop cars to American sheriffs.

For the first time, the tariff offer makes clear what TTIP might do for consumers: remove duties, and prices tend to drop. With tariffs on parts gone, cars could get cheaper. Per part, tariffs add just a few cents on the euro, but altogether European car manufacturers could save a billion Euros each year, according to German Association of the Automotive Industry calculations. Manufacturers could then pass the savings on to consumers.

The EU is now waiting for the US to offer a substantial deal on public procurement. In a September 15 report obtained by CORRECTIV, the European Commission says “it definitely expects that the US will offer to open public procurement at a future point in time, in exchange for the revised tariff offer.”

That report also indicated that the US “promised to make a proposal regarding public procurement for the first time” when the EU and US put forth their symmetrical tariff reductions, eliminating 97 percent of all tariffs.
Public bids are a major TTIP sticking point. The EU wants the US to finally open its markets to allow firms like Balfour Beattie or BMW to compete when cities put out a call for bids on a new building or fleet of cars. The US is less than eager, because that would subject domestic companies – which are already allowed to bid on projects in the EU – to increased competition.

Four days before the next negotiation round starts, the European Commission has now indicated that they don’t expect a comprehensive offer. Sources said that the US haven’t sent their proposal yet and that public procurement will be discussed right after the official negotiation round. The 12th round of negotiations started this Monday in Brussels.

Read more: TTIP: Secret document reveals EU offer to drop 97 percent of tariffs | openDemocracy

Big Brother : Twitter says government requests for your data jumped 52% - most request US followed by Japan and Turkey

Governments want your data now more than ever.

That's according to Twitter, which released its twice-yearly transparency report on Tuesday, revealing that the number of times governments requested user account information jumped about 52% from 2,871 requests during the second half of 2014 to 4,363 requests during the first half of this year. The social network cooperated with 58% of those requests by handing over data.

Jeremy Kessel, Twitter's senior manager of global legal policy, called it, the "largest increase between reporting periods" the social network has ever seen.

Just as notable: Periscope alone received 1,391 copyright takedown requests during the same period — a startling number given the popular live streaming app debuted in March.

Meanwhile, requests from U.S. government officials made up 56% of all requests, followed by Japan, then Turkey, although requests from India spiked a whopping 175% versus the period before to 113 requests, 19% of which produced some information.

Twitter's government transparency report, which the social network began publishing in 2012, covers data requests from the governments of more than 45 countries, from Canada and the Dominican Republic to Cyprus and Serbia, often relating to criminal investigations.

Read more: Twitter says government requests for your data jumped 52%

EU-US Trade Negotiations Not Transparent: New British parliamentary report on TTIP highlights its dangers - by Polly Jones

TTIP

With just a few days left before the British Parliament dissolves ahead of the general election, a flurry of select committees are publishing reports on inquiries which have been held in recent months. Among them is the Business Innovation and Skills Select Committee’s report on the Transatlantic Trade and investment Partnership (TTIP), published yesterday.

I gave evidence to the TTIP inquiry on behalf of Global Justice Now.

TTIP is an ambitious neoliberal trade agreement being negotiated between the EU and USA. Its purpose is to create new trading opportunities for EU and US business by reducing tariffs, removing unnecessary regulation, liberalising some sectors and giving new protection for investors.

The controversy around TTIP is about what regulation is deemed unnecessary, which sectors will be liberalised and that business will benefit at the expense of governments.

The gravity of these concerns has ignited a furious public campaign on TTIP from trade unions, environmental organisations, international development groups and NHS campaigners, united in their call for the negotiations to stop.

The findings of the BIS select committee report vindicate the public’s concerns.

Many of the arguments for TTIP rest on the benefits it will bring to the UK, European and US economy, often breaking this down to a £400 benefit to every UK family every year. The economic models used to churn out these figures are fundamentally flawed (http://blog.policy.manchester.ac.uk/featured/2013/12/the-false-promise-of-eu-us-trade-talks/) and present a best case scenario which would not deliver any benefits until 2027 and then only £2 per person a week - equivalent to a packet of fishfingers.

The 11 British MPs from across the political spectrum find that “it is impossible at this stage to quantify those benefits in any meaningful way”. They are critical of the figures the UK government uses to promote TTIP and instruct it to undertake a comprehensive assessment of the likely economic benefits of various possible outcomes on TTIP.

Read more: New parliamentary report on TTIP highlights its dangers | openDemocracy

Insurance Industry - SURE: International Insurance Highlights With A Special Focus On Europe

Check out the Spring 2015 edition of Sure!   

Sure! is a compilation of press reports as well as market research conducted by Koster Verzekeringen BV, in order to gain more insight into the developments concerning the insurance industry as it relates to the overall global economic climate, social structure and the political environment.

In the Spring 2015 edition of Sure! Solvency II remains on top, as more and more effects of it's impact are felt around the European Union, radically changing the way insurance companies used to conduct their business. The objective of Solvency II, as aspired by the European Commission, is to create additional transparency and a more harmonized insurance industry throughout the European Union.

The Spring 2015 edition of Sure! also provides insight on how some specific EU member states are being affected by Solvency II , including France, Germany, Italy, Britain, in addition to recent developments in Greece and the Netherlands related to the insurance industry.

EU-Digest

Global Economy: European economic figures far more accurate than those from the US - by RM

Transparency key to success Atlantic Alliance

When listening to or reading US financial reports there are some remarkably disturbing facts popping up.

One of these is the fact that it was actually the US which caused the 2007/2008 financial crash but this has been completely swept under the mat by the US.

Keep in mind though that all the media outlets in the US, except very few, which are "not for profit organizations" (who mainly get their income from public/private donations and grants) are mostly profit based multi-national corporations. This should immediately raise a red flag as to the impartiality and balance of the news/financial reports they release.

Possibly, this is also the reason that at the same time there is this constant barrage of attacks coming from those same US media circles bashing and critizicing the EU/ECB for not adopting the US QE financial policies (printing more money and pumping this" monopoly money" into the marketplace) in order to get the EU economy going again.

As to the US QE policies,  many economists believe this could eventually be a recipe for future US economic disaster.

Also, looking at some of the official figures put out by the US Government and reading between the lines, the attentive reader will quickly find a lot of nebulous statistics on a variety of issues and items, including employment, trade, debt, infrastructure, military and security expenditures.

In this volatile scenario Wall Street is a special "Chapter" by itself.  Some critics call Wall Street a financial "fairyland" where words and phrases as versatility, headwinds, optimize, boldness, performance, choices, transparency, bubbles, wealth, growth, state of the art, profitable, opportunity are used in different ways as shares go up and down and traders turn out the big winners in dividing up the spoils.

Obviously without any doubt there are also "forces" in Europe ( Britain) who are following and would love to have the EU adapt this "flawed" US financial model.

Fortunately, and maybe unfortunately for some,  the EU is a Union of 28 countries with 28 central banks.  Of these 28 countries 18 belong to the so called European Economic Zone (Eurozone) that have adopted the euro (€) as their common currency.and sole legal tender.

The ECB is the central bank for the euro and administers monetary policy for the whole Eurozone.

Any report or statistic on or about the state of the EU economy issued by the ECB  is scrutinized very carefully by all 18 members of the ECB before they become public.Canada which is a Federated country also applies similar rules.

Official EU financial reports and statement are therefore without any doubt far  more accurate and reliable than those coming from US government agencies.

Isn't it time for the EU to get to the point with our friends across the other side of the pond on this issue? And what better venue to do it than during the ongoing EU-US trade negotiations?

EU-Digest