The European Commission’s proposed Public Procurement Act is seen by EFPIA as an important step towards modernising public procurement in the EU. The proposal places greater emphasis on quality, innovation, sustainability and resilience, moving away from procurement decisions based mainly on the lowest price.

EFPIA supports making the Best Price-Quality Ratio (BPQR) the default approach and limiting price-only procurement to exceptional cases. It also stresses that resilience should not mean localisation. EU procurement should remain open to trusted international suppliers, as globally integrated pharmaceutical supply chains are essential to Europe’s security of supply.

Any localisation criteria should therefore be exceptional, proportionate and non-discriminatory, with safeguards to prevent them from restricting competition or weakening supply-chain resilience.