Spain Advances Comprehensive Pharmaceutical Reform to Enhance Access and Innovation
Spain is finalizing major reforms in pharmaceutical legislation to enhance medicine affordability, supply security, and innovation access.
- • Spain is undergoing a comprehensive reform of pharmaceutical legislation centered on transparency, access, and strategic autonomy.
- • The Anteproyecto de Ley de Medicamentos aims to ensure affordable prices and secure supply of essential medicines and is nearing parliamentary submission.
- • The Real Decreto de Evaluación de Tecnologías Sanitarias will improve impartial evaluation and integration of health technologies.
- • Spain has reduced funding decision times for innovative medicines from 519 to 344 days and increased supported medicines by 35% over four years.
Key details
Spain is undertaking a significant reform of its pharmaceutical policy in 2025, aiming to improve transparency, access, and innovation in its healthcare system. Javier Padilla, Secretary of State for Health, outlined key elements of this reform, emphasizing a complete overhaul of pharmaceutical legislation at both national and European levels. Central to the reform is the Anteproyecto de Ley de Medicamentos, a draft law designed to guarantee affordable prices and secure supply of essential medicines. This legislation is in its final processing stage before being presented to the Spanish Congress of Deputies.
Further enhancing Spain's healthcare framework is the Real Decreto de Evaluación de Tecnologías Sanitarias, which seeks to improve the evaluation and incorporation of valuable health technologies with a focus on independence and transparency. Spain has also successfully expedited access to innovative medicines, reducing the average financing decision time from 519 days in 2020 to 344 days in 2023, while increasing funded innovative medicines by 35%.
Padilla highlighted the strategic pharmaceutical industry plan for 2024-2028, which aims to redefine relations between public institutions and the pharmaceutical sector based on cooperation rather than transactional interactions. These reforms collectively support strategic autonomy, sustainability, and enhanced healthcare innovation in Spain. Padilla concluded that while these measures are not exhaustive, they constitute the essential pillars shaping the current and future pharmaceutical policy landscape in Spain.
This article was synthesized and translated from native language sources to provide English-speaking readers with local perspectives.
