The Conference was hosted at the University of Copenhagen on November 24, 2023. Under the theme of the EU’s revision of its general pharmaceutical legislation, this conference brought together policy stakeholders including research-based industry rep Nick Sykes from EFPIA; generic industry rep Adrian van den Hoven from Medicines for Europe; rare disease patient rep Francois Houyez from EURORDIS; the head of the Danish Medicines Agency, Lars Bo Nielsen; the Member of the European Parliament, Pernille Weiss, designated to report on the EC’s proposal for a Directive; and academic, Katrina Perehudoff. Katrina’s contribution, based on her ongoing research exploring the EU’s role in global access to medicines, revealed four mechanisms through which the current EU pharma package influences pharmaceutical regulation outside the EU and the known impacts on regulators and patients of this global influence. Then, Katrina outlined the foreign actors seeking to influence the European Commission’s proposal to review the general pharma legislation, the imbalance in contributions from business and patient interests based outside the EU, and the variation in the key policy concerns raised by each group. 

Katrina’s participation was supported in part by a Veni talent grant from the Netherlands Organisation of Scientific Research.