Healthcare industries in the European Union

The pharmaceutical industry makes an important contribution to Europe's and the world's well-being.

It is a strategic sector due to its economic as well as its public health dimension. Europe needs to preserve a vibrant pharmaceutical sector as an essential precondition to ensure a high level of public health protection and a competitive knowledge-based economy.

Since the adoption of the first Community Directive (Directive 65/65/EEC)in 1965, a score of Community legislation, which led to the creation of the European Medicines Agency, has followed with the aim of achieving a single market for pharmaceuticals.

Today, the pharmaceutical sector is extensively regulated at EU level in the dual interest of ensuring the highest possible level of public health and patient confidence in safe, effective and high-quality medicinal products, while continuing to develop a single EU market for pharmaceuticals in order to strengthen the European pharmaceutical industry's competitiveness and research capability.