Articles for the ‘Life Sciences’ Category

Over the Christmas break, the Belgian Parliament adopted an urgent law with several measures linked to the approved 2026 healthcare budget, with effect from 1 January 2026. The law is intentionally limited to provisions that must enter into force immediately to ensure that the required savings and revenues are available from the start of the budget year. Several measures are directly relevant for pharma companies. This blog post highlights the key takeaways and briefly examines the central budgetary provisions affecting the sector.

The Turkish Medicines and Medical Devices Agency updated its Guidelines on Scientific Meetings and Educational Events for medical devices on 4 January 2024, introducing a notable change of imposing a fee for event applications, set at TRY 1,114.02, effective immediately. This update eliminates the need to upload a commitment letter for event notifications and aims to streamline processes and enhance transparency in industry activities. However, the decision to charge fees has sparked criticism for potentially reducing the number of notifications by imposing additional financial burdens on companies. Further, similar fees will apply to pharmaceutical companies, although guidelines for pharmaceutical products have not been updated yet.

On 11 December 2025, following overnight negotiations, the Council and the European Parliament announced a political agreement on the long-awaited Pharma Package (see here). The reform seeks to update the EU’s pharmaceutical rulebook to facilitate access to safe and affordable treatments and bolster the life sciences sector’s competitiveness. While more detailed information is still trickling out, including the official text of the provisional agreement, we summarise below the main axes of the package available at this time.

The Belgian Constitutional Court (“CC”), on 6 November 2025, annulled some provisions of the Law of 18 May 2024 containing various provisions on health and finance, striking down the pharma industry ‘unavailability contribution’.

The Turkish Medicines and Medical Devices Agency updated its Guidelines on Scientific Meetings and Educational Events for medical devices on 4 January 2024, introducing a notable change of imposing a fee for event applications, set at TRY 1,114.02, effective immediately. This update eliminates the need to upload a commitment letter for event notifications and aims to streamline processes and enhance transparency in industry activities. However, the decision to charge fees has sparked criticism for potentially reducing the number of notifications by imposing additional financial burdens on companies. Further, similar fees will apply to pharmaceutical companies, although guidelines for pharmaceutical products have not been updated yet.