Health spending is falling across Europe, leading to neglect of public health strategies, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has warned.

The OECD report observed that austerity measures are leading governments to focus spending on acute care, while preventative strategies such as immunisation and smoking cessation are neglected.

Health spending per person in the EU has fallen from an average annual growth rate of 4.6% between 2000 and 2009 to −0.6% in 2010.

The UK is typical, with a drop in health spending of 0.5% in 2010 after a decade of annual growth at 4.9%.

Other countries further along the austerity road show a steeper decline – for example, health spending in Ireland fell by 7.9% after a decade of 6.5% growth.

As Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne stated in 2006 that Ireland’s economy was a model the UK should follow.

The OECD report notes that smoking and obesity are the major risk factors for cardiovascular disease, which caused 36% of all deaths in Europe in 2010.

Obesity rates have doubled across Europe since 1990, now at 17% of the population – and 25% in the UK.

“Governments under pressure to protect funding for acute care are cutting other expenditures such as public health and prevention programmes,” noted the OECD.

“In 2010, on average across EU countries, only 3% of health budgets were allocated to prevention and public health programmes in areas such as immunisation, smoking, alcohol, nutrition, and physical activity.”

The effects of this neglect of preventative healthcare will be seen in the coming years, the report warned.

The European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) has offered Greece a cap on its drug expenditure in return for immediate payment.

The offer, made on behalf of Europe’s major pharmaceutical companies, reflects a growing industry awareness of the depth of Greece’s economic crisis.

In addition, the strategy represents a potential blueprint for comparable healthcare funding crises in Ireland, Spain, Portugal and even the UK.

In a letter to the Greek ministers of health and finance, EFPIA offered to accept a national ceiling on outpatient pharmaceutical drug bills of €2.88 billion in 2012, in return for settlement of outstanding debts and no delays in future payments.

Last month, the Greek government suspended all drug exports from the country in order to prevent domestic shortages.

Richard Bergstrom, Director General of EFPIA, said that major pharmaceutical companies were showing a more flexible attitude towards Greece due to the worsening economic climate across Europe.

“Setting a growth cap or budget ceiling is not something we have ever liked to do in the past, but in the current environment it is better to do that and have some stability,” he said.

“We’ve suggested this to a number of other governments as an approach to deal with the financial crisis.”

Interim trade agreements to ensure drug payments have been developed for Portugal, Ireland and Belgium, and could be extended to other crisis-hit economies including the UK.

This week, German pharmaceutical company Merck KGaA said it was no longer making its cancer drug Erbitux available to Greek hospitals.

Baxter International has recalled 300,000 doses of its flu vaccine Preflucel after a considerably high number of side effects were reported.

Most of the vaccines were distributed in Ireland and Scotland, where reports of side effects included tiredness, muscle pain and headache, which are typically associated with flu jabs.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) issued a statement on its website saying: “The vaccine should no longer be used and any remaining stock should be returned to the original supplier for credit. No further Preflucel of any batch should be administered at this time.”

Baxter commented that the recall was precautionary and that those who have received the jab do not need to be re-vaccinated.

VistaMed’s investment of €7.2 million in R&D and product expansion will create 79 jobs, nearly doubling its workforce.

The Irish company designs, develops and manufactures catheters and complementary medical devices, exporting to the UK, Europe, US, South America and India.

Paddy Mulholland, Managing Director of VistaMed, said that the company “has continued to develop its capabilities and today we offer a comprehensive design development and manufacturing of innovative catheter solutions”.

The company’s investment is supported by the government through Enterprise Ireland.

Currently, 93 people are employed by VistaMed at its facility in Leitrim.

The FDA has approved Crospon’s EF-800 external channel endoscopic accessory to deploy the company’s EndoFLIP catheters.

John O'Dea, CEO of Crospon, said that the medical device will enable the catheters to be used in “hard to access parts of the gastrointestinal tract”, for example, “measurement of stomas in the stomach created during bariatric surgery procedures”.

The company received FDA and CE Mark approval to market its EndoFLIP EF-900 gastric tube in July 2011, for use in bariatric surgery to provide support for sleeve gastrectomy, and to allow stomach decompression, gastric fluid drainage and removal.

Based in Ireland, Crospon develops minimally-invasive medical devices for monitoring, diagnosis and therapy in gastroenterology.

The EMA is reassured about the quality of Baxter’s dialysis fluids following improvements at the company’s manufacturing facility in Castlebar, Ireland, after an investigation.

Several modifications are now being made at the site including a redesign, new cleaning methods and improved testing to ensure future endotoxin-free dialysis.

The Irish Medicines Board will also inspect the plant next month, after which it will go through a 12 month monitoring ‘requalification period’ with products undergoing rigorous testing and increased surveillance.

The CHMP began a review in December last year after endotoxins were detected in solutions which may have led to adverse reactions in some patients undergoing peritoneal dialysis.

After notifying the EMA, Baxter identified two troublesome tanks as the cause of the problem and subsequently removed them from the production line. Additional tanks and pipe works were also cleaned in an attempt to remove the bacteria.

However, endotoxins were still detected in batches of solutions produced at the plant and resulted in the manufacturing of the solutions to be stopped and shifted outside of the EU.

The affected products, including Dianeal, Extraneal and Nutrineal solutions for peritoneal dialysis; and Monosol used for haemodialysis, were eventually recalled in stages and the supply from Castlebar stopped.

Following an inspection of the plant, the CHMP concluded that the “root cause” was a combination of undetected cracks in equipment, the design of the plant and cleaning methods that may have allowed the contamination to spread.

The corrective measures being introduced at Castlebar will now be applied to Baxter’s other manufacturing plants.

Pfizer is to invest $200 million at its Grange Castle biotechnology manufacturing site in Clondalkin, County Dublin.

The new investment will see Pfizer introduce two new processing suites to expand its current production and product testing capabilities.

Frank D’Amelio, Chief Financial Officer, Pfizer, says “Ireland is a prime location for this major investment” after a “long history in pharmaceutical excellence”.

The biotechnology manufacturing facility is already one of the largest in the world and produces two of Pfizer’s main products, Prevnar and Enbrel.

More than 1,100 staff are currently employed at the site. Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny says that the new investment highlights “the tremendous contribution to Ireland’s life sciences industry since it (Pfizer) first established here in 1969 and this investment is a further demonstration of the company’s continuous commitment”.

In total, Pfizer has 4,300 staff employed across the country in eight separate locations in Cork, Dublin, Kildare and Limerick. Its latest investment means the company’s outlay now exceeds $7 billion in the country.

Alkermes (ALKS) has marked its first day of operations at its new Dublin HQ with a long term multi-million dollar manufacturing contract with one of the world’s top pharma companies.

The pharma company’s finished product will be manufactured at Alkermes new Athlone facility in Ireland in a deal which could be worth up to $20m by 2016.

Richard Pops, CEO of Alkermes, said the company was “excited to have our operations based in Ireland, which we view as a gateway to the European Union and global pharmaceutical market”.

The company employs more than 450 staff based in Ireland and more than 1,200 worldwide.

The plant in Athlone is one of three facilities owned by Alkermes where the company manufactures proprietary, partnered and contract-based drug products.

Sanofi Pasteur MSD has appointed Dr Aidrian Kilcoyne as its new medical director in the UK.

He currently works for Roche Pharmaceuticals in Ireland, where he manages a team responsible for medical affairs, pharmacovigilance, regulatory affairs, information and research.

Before his time at Roche, Aidrian held a medical director post at Baxter Healthcare, prior to which he served as a senior clinical research physician at Lilly.

Sanofi Pasteur is the vaccine branch of Sanofi-Aventis, a global company which develops and distributes a range of vaccines.