UAE, Sept. 9 -- For decades, European health systems have purchased generic medicines on a simple principle: buy the cheapest available option. That logic helped contain costs, but it also pushed manufacturing steadily eastward, concentrating the production of essential medicines - and their active pharmaceutical ingredients - in a handful of countries outside Europe. Now, with the EU Critical Medicines Act advancing through trilogue negotiations in 2026, policymakers are asking whether the cheapest option is still the safest one.

A 2021 European Commission study warned that 80% of imported pharmaceutical ingredients come from just five countries, with China alone accounting for 45% of the total. When supply chains for amoxicillin - one...