MEPs have voted to enshrine pollution prevention into the EU’s revised pharmaceutical rulebook in a Plenary vote this week which sealed its first-reading position on the proposed legislative package. The Reports of MEPs Pernille Weiss and Tiemo Wölken, endorsed by the ENVI committee last month, were adopted without changes on Wednesday evening.

The text has kept the strong ambition shown by the Commission proposal in embedding environmental concerns in the authorisation process for new medicines, as well as reinforced scrutiny for products already on the market. We welcome in particular the ban on over-the-counter sales of medicines containing substances classed as persistent, mobile and toxic (PMT) and very persistent & very mobile (vPvM), whose residues are especially difficult to remove in urban wastewater treatment.

Together with the final adoption of the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive just minutes later in the Plenary, MEPs’ positive vote on the Pharma package lays down a comprehensive EU approach to tackling pollution from medicines, from control at the source to end-of-pipe treatment paid by the polluter.