Report | 6 December, 2018 | Download PDF

Since 2016, The Netherlands has been among the few EU Member States to resolutely and vocally commit to addressing the systemic problems that permit and sustain high medicines prices. Recently, the government made strong statements about safeguards for the flexible implementation of patent rules for public health. In doing so, the government effectively broke ranks with other EU countries in multilateral fora; instead, the Netherlands seems to try to find new paths synonymous with its changing domestic policies for drug development and pricing.

This report aims to collect the Dutch government’s policy commitments for the development and marketing of new, affordable medicines in the Netherlands. It also aims to assess the degree to which the Dutch government has implemented these commitments through concrete policy measures to date.