2011 brought growing awareness of the need to ensure that the increasing demand by European citizens for homeopathic and anthroposophic medicine can be met by finding solutions to assure the availability and accessibility of these medicinal products. Nevertheless ECHAMP fears that the bureaucracy of the current regulatory environment, which does not pay attention to the special characteristics and general positive safety profile of these products, will remain a stumbling block to the plurality of the medicinal products necessary for the quality of these two established European therapeutic approaches. Download ECHAMP’s annual report for a round-up of developments in 2011 and an outlook for 2012.

A new study by ECHAMP values the total EU market for homeopathic and anthroposophic medicinal products in 2010 at €1.035 billion, showing that the EU industry for these products exceeded the €1 billion mark for the third year in a row.

‘Homeopathy and anthroposophic medicine in the EU: Facts and Figures 2011’ (Third edition) demonstrates significant growth in the sales of homeopathic and anthroposophic medicinal products over the past fifteen years. It shows continued good growth for many markets in 2010, especially the smaller ones, but nevertheless the overall picture for the EU in 2010 is one of a slight decline. Read more…

The European Commission has launched a number of stakeholder consultations as it progresses towards the implementation of the new legislation on pharmacovigilance and falsification into a practical regulatory framework in the 27 Member States. There is still a lack of clarity regarding a number of topics concerning the specific situation of homeopathic and anthroposophic medicinal products. Nand De Herdt explains how, if the European industry is to remain competitive, there is a need to have rules that recognise the high safety profile of these products and deal with the low risk of these products in a proportionate way. Read more…

This issue of ECHAMP e-News takes as its theme the value and benefits of an integrated approach to medicine. Paolo Roberti di Sarsina MD, Paola Guadagni MD and Mauro Alivia MD, from Association for Person-Centred Medicine in Bologna, Italy, explain that to achieve person-centred medicine, healthcare policy needs to be oriented towards reducing healthcare inequality, promoting health education, and facilitating pluralism in research and medical education. Dr Susanne Schunder-Tatzber, the new president of European Council of Doctors for the Plurality of Medicine (ECPM) talks to ECHAMP e-News about her experience of CAM and her vision for its full integration into health care in Europe, and Christine Marking provides a round-up of European public health programmes and the opportunities they offer for greater consideration of the role of homeopathy and anthroposophic medicine.  Read more…