Access and availability: Why are Europeans finding it hard to get the new medicines they need?

41-year-old IT engineer and amateur cyclist Kuba Molka lives in Poland. Health problems he suffered during his late teens have left him with painful memories.

"My symptoms were diarrhoea, and blood in the stools and so on; frequent diarrhoea that is," he told Smart Health. 

"All the doctors said that it was due to stress before my A-levels. But when I was done with my A-levels and entrance exams to university, it still persisted. So that is when I seriously started looking for help."

Kuba was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, a chronic inflammatory bowel disease. Successive treatments proved less and less effective and left him increasingly prone to side effects.

Both in Poland and in the European Union, a particular injectable medicine that can help treat his condition is available. But for months, Kuba could not get it.

The only way he was finally able to access the drug was by volunteering for an ongoing research programme.

"The first thing I did was ask my doctor if there were other ways to pursue to get the medicine that I need. And then he came up with the idea to take part in a research [programme]. I'm slowly starting to see that there is improvement in my condition."

Like Kuba, thousands of other Poles and European patients are finding it hard to get their hands on the latest and most effective medicines they need.

Waiting times to access some of these new medicines can be unbearably long, and there are significant disparities among EU countries when it comes to this.

Between 2017 and 2022, the EU average waiting time for access to approved medicines was 511 days. In Germany, the waiting time is much shorter, with an average of just 133 days. In Poland, however, patients had to wait an average of 844 days to receive