HERA VISIT THE NORDIC PHARMACEUTICALS FORUM

Iceland, Norway and Denmark were able to announce the first joint Nordic tendering procedure just five years after the Nordic Pharmaceuticals Forum was established. Since then, more procedures have followed. Most recently with joint Nordic environmental criteria.

- It’s important to recognise that it hasn’t been easy to put together the joint tendering procedures. We’re still having to dedicate significant resources to our joint procurement. Today, we have a very effective setup for the joint Nordic tendering procedures, and we’ve also been able to introduce common Nordic environmental criteria. This is something we’re very proud of. We’ve all worked hard together, including through the Nordic Pharmaceuticals Forum, so that now the Nordics are on their way to becoming the most integrated region in Europe within pharmaceuticals, said Tommy Juhl Nielsen, (Divisional Director, Sykehusinkjøp, Norway.

Our well-functioning setup for joint Nordic tendering procedures was rewarded back in 2022. Iceland, Norway and Denmark received an international prize: The European Healthcare Procurement Award. The countries received the prize for their outstanding, important and scalable collaboration on joint Nordic tendering procedures, and for being a role model for other organisations 

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Increasing difficulties with supply. Increasing expenditure on medicines due to demographic trends, as well as new, and often expensive, treatment options. These were, and still are, the challenges facing the Nordic countries with respect to securing supplies of hospital medicines for our patients. As the countries are also considered as small, and perhaps not always attractive markets, there has been good reason to join forces to create a common, and thereby larger market for an ever more global pharmaceuticals industry.

- Iceland has a very small population and a very small pharmaceutical market. So we saw great potential from the very start when we were able to participate in joint tendering procedures with the other Nordics. And looking at our experience so far, joining the forum has definitely been successful. Because we’ve not only gained better prices. We can also see how the joint tendering procedures have helped to secure supplies of medicines in areas in which it would otherwise have been extremely difficult to attract suppliers to Iceland, said Hulda Harðardóttir, Project Manager at the Procurement Department Landspítali, the National University Hospital of Iceland, said Hulda Harðardóttir, Project Manager at the Procurement Department Landspítali, the National University Hospital of Iceland.

Norway, Iceland and Denmark are planning to announce the next joint Nordic tendering procedure in spring 2024.

The European Commission established HERA (Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority) in September 2021 to prevent, detect and rapidly react to health crises.

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