Document Detail


Availability of medicines in the European Union: results from the EURO-Medicines project.
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  11699607     Owner:  NLM     Status:  MEDLINE    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
OBJECTIVE: There is at present no comprehensive directory of medicines available in European countries. Such a directory would be valuable to policy analysts, clinicians, regulatory agencies, pharmaceutical companies and consumer groups. The aim of this project was to compile such a directory of all medicines marketed in each of the European Union member countries. METHODS: Lists of medicines for each country, compiled from several national sources, classified by Anatomical-Chemical-Therapeutic (ATC) code. Census date was late 1998. RESULTS: A comprehensive directory was created using data from 14 of the 15 European Union countries. Numbers of trade names and of active ingredients varied widely, from Germany with 18,554 and 1,973, respectively, to Denmark with 1,915 and 1,016, respectively. In individual therapeutic areas, there were variations in the numbers of active ingredients available: the least variation between countries was in antineoplastic medicines (ATC code L, maximum number available in any country 101, minimum 60) and wider variation in alimentary (ATC code A, maximum 256. minimum 103) or cardiovascular (ATC code C, maximum 269, minimum 112). Only 7% of all the active ingredients were available in all the countries studied. The Scandinavian countries had the greatest proportion of active ingredients (60%) available in all other countries. Each country had a number of active ingredients available only in that country Italy had the largest number of these. CONCLUSIONS: The directory illustrates the wide variations in the availability of medicines across the European Union. The range of drugs available in each country represents differences in regulatory and market policies, as well as cultural and historic differences. This directory lends itself to many further analyses.
Authors:
P Folino-Gallo; T Walley; J C Frolich; A Carvajal; I R Edwards
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Publication Detail:
Type:  Comparative Study; Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't    
Journal Detail:
Title:  European journal of clinical pharmacology     Volume:  57     ISSN:  0031-6970     ISO Abbreviation:  Eur. J. Clin. Pharmacol.     Publication Date:  2001 Sep 
Date Detail:
Created Date:  2001-11-08     Completed Date:  2002-04-26     Revised Date:  2007-11-15    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  1256165     Medline TA:  Eur J Clin Pharmacol     Country:  Germany    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  441-6     Citation Subset:  IM    
Affiliation:
EURO-Medicines project, Institute of Hygiene, Rome, Italy. pfolino@rm.unicatt.it
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MeSH Terms
Descriptor/Qualifier:
Data Collection
Directories as Topic
Drug Therapy / standards,  statistics & numerical data*
Drug Utilization / standards,  statistics & numerical data
Europe
European Union / statistics & numerical data*
Humans
Pharmaceutical Preparations / supply & distribution*
Chemical
Reg. No./Substance:
0/Pharmaceutical Preparations

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine


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