A package of health proposals intended to build up the EU’s resilience to health threats while strengthening the competitiveness of Europe’s pharmaceutical industry and ensuring access to affordable drugs takes a major step through the legislative process this week.

Hikma has pushed back against a further attempt by Amarin to counter its US generic version of Vascepa, this time via a fresh lawsuit claiming that the generic induces infringement of patents protecting cardiovascular indications for which the brand is approved but which are carved out of the generic label.

The European Medicines Agency will continue working over the Christmas period so that it can complete its assessment of the newly filed marketing applications for BioNTech/Pfizer’s and Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines as soon possible.