In January 2022, Iceland, Norway and Denmark published the first joint Nordic tendering procedure with environmental criteria, following thorough preparatory work involving the industry in Denmark.
For this reason, we were all very excited to see whether we would attract good tenders.
And we did!
We have now been rewarded with a new international award: The European Healthcare Procurement Awards 2022.
The organisations behind award are EHPPA - the European Health Public Procurement Alliance, and Health Proc Europe.
“I think we can allow ourselves to be both pleased and proud to receive an award for all the work we have put in together to develop and implement our joint Nordic tendering procedures. It’s important we remember that this was only the second time that we had published a joint Nordic call for tenders, and the first time we could say to our suppliers that, besides price and quality, the environment was also important for our selection. However, this was doubtless not the last time. Together with the other Nordic countries, we will continue and expand our collaboration,” said Flemming Sonne, CEO of Amgros.
The award was presented at a conference in Brussels held on 20 and 21 September. The three Nordic countries received the award with the following reasoning:
Our international scientific committee has chosen your initiative in the category Innovation & Procurement Excellence as being outstanding, impactful, scalable and an inspiring role model for other organisations.
“These are indeed very rewarding words for our collaboration. We worked hard, and would never have gotten as far as we did without the close and good collaboration and dialogue, understanding and determination across national borders, support from authorities and stakeholders. Having said that, I would also like to express that it is very valuable for Iceland to be part of the joint Nordic tendering procedure. We’ve seen that more medicines have been registered on the Icelandic market, and at considerably lower bid prices,” said Hulda Harðardóttir, project manager for pharmaceutical procurement at the Procurement Department at the National University Hospital of Iceland (Landspítali).
Besides the Innovation & Procurement Excellence category, the international alliances also presented awards in categories for Sustainability and Digitalisation & Transparency.
Iceland, Norway and Denmark decided to implement joint tendering procedures for medicines because all three countries are facing growing challenges to secure supplies and combat increasing prices. The supply challenges apply in particular for older drugs. And they strike particularly hard in smaller markets such as the Nordic countries. Furthermore, there is a global requirement that everyone has to contribute to achieving countries’ ambitious goals for the climate and the environment.
“We can't talk about sustainability without also examining the significance of pharmaceuticals for our environment and climate. Therefore, as national medicines procurement organisations, we’re responsible for doing what we can to influence the sustainable agenda. And this is not entirely easy, but now we’re well on the way. By working together on common environmental criteria, we have succeeded in taking an important step towards making our medicines procurement more sustainable. And can we also inspire other countries in the EU, our joint efforts and collaboration could turn out to make even more sense,” said Tommy Juhl Nielsen, (division director of the pharmaceuticals division, Norge Sykehusinnkjøp HF.
Amgros received the European Healthcare Procurement Awards 2022 on behalf of the three countries.
EHPPA (the European Health Public Procurement Alliance) is an association of European non-profit procurement organisations.
Health Proc Europe is a professional platform for exchanging information and experience between private and public procurement professionals within the healthcare sector. Members come from Austria, France, the UK, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and Switzerland.
Read more about our common Nordic tendering procedures here.
Read more about the Nordisk Lægemiddelforum (Nordic Pharmaceuticals Forum) here.
Contact
Karen Torgny
Senior Specialist- Communication
I’m responsible for overall communication at Amgros, including PR. And I help to ensure that we communicate with the surrounding world in an open and engaging manner.