Access to innovative medicines in Cyprus very limited

The European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) has conducted a survey on patient accessibility to innovative medicines across 39 countries in Europe, for the period 2017-2020.

Innovative medicines are those given to patients for conditions that do not already have satisfactory treatment available in the market.

Results show Cyprus ranking 23rd among 39 countries with just 45 out of a total of 160 innovative medicines approved and available to the public. The average among the 39 countries is 74 out of 160 medicinal products being available, that is 46 per cent. The country with the highest number of available innovative medicines is Germany, at 147.

Cyprus ranked lowest among all participating countries for overall ease of availability, as out of the total of 160 medicines, only 1 per cent is fully available to the public; 6 per cent is only available privately; 9 per cent is not available; and 28 per cent is under limited availability. For the remaining 56 per cent, Cyprus did not complete a full dataset and therefore availability is unknown

The proportion of medicines available to patients without restriction was also problematic as according to the survey, in Cyprus, only 2 per cent of the 45 products were fully publicly available, with the remaining 98 per cent subject to restrictions.

.