# EAPM - „Pečių prie rato“ laikas pacientams patekti - Europos Parlamento renginys - gruodžio 3 d

Everybody knows that access for patients to innovative medicines and treatments is important, rašo Europos aljansas už Pritaikomo Medicina (EAPM) vykdomasis direktorius Denisas Horgan.

Politicians know, health-care professionals know, the European Commission knows, patients certainly know…and it appears that even some journalists know.

There have been so many conferences, round tables, internal meetings, articles and so on surrounding the subject that it is impossible to keep count.

And that’s just in the past few weeks.

But the simple fact is that access is often not happening and, even when it is, it is not happening quickly enough.

So, as noted up top, there’s a lot of ‘stuff’ going on around health care and patient access to it. Lots of complicated stuff, in fact.

Now, in a bid to cut-to-the-chase, a debate among healthcare leaders, policymakers and patient stakeholders aims to get right down to the nitty-gritty, to examine what can be done - realistically and now - to improve access, while identifying the benchmarks to allow this to be achieved.

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As part of its multi-stakeholder approach to health care, the Brussels-based European Alliance for Personalised Medicine (EAPM) will be co-hosting the event in the members salon of the European Parliament on 3 December.

A key part of the event will cover what EAPM calls ‘the access conundrum’.

The sponsoring MEP is Sirpa Pietikainen, a long-time advocate of personalised medicine, and pharmaceutical company Roche will also co-host the event.

Participants will include Tuula Helander, from Finland’s Ministry of Health, Mary Harney, Irish former Minister of Health, MEPs Marian Harkin, Paul Rubig and Cristian Busoi, plus Roche’s Luc Dirckx and patient-access organisation representative Stanimir Hasurdjiev.

Registration for the meeting is still open. See the link, ČIA. Please click ČIA peržiūrėti darbotvarkę.

Access to optimal health care across EU Member States has often been proven to be varied and inequitable, and of serious concern to an ageing population now suffering, in a growing number, from more than one disease.

The kickback against society of long waiting times, a lack of the best treatment and diagnostics available (in, say, cancer treatment), inadequate implementation of cross-border healthcare, a shortage of hospital beds and other barriers is huge, leading to loss of quality of life for citizens and even loss of life itself.

There are obviously many spokes to the access wheel, some of which we’ll touch on here, but in truth the wheel isn’t rolling as it should be. We need more ‘shoulders’ to help to push it.

Or to use another analogy, we’ve all heard about climate change and the risk of boiling the oceans, but even if we avoid that calamity there are surely stormy seas ahead. In the case of access, those stormy seas are already here.

We have that often-cited ageing population, and rare diseases are being discovered all the time, without optimal ways to deal with them. Think co-morbidities in the first instance, and difficulties with clinical trials and the high cost of new medicines in the other.

We know that our policymakers want to support improved access and no-one said it is easy. OK, so policymakers are experts at ‘mechanisms’, but it is making them fit-for-purpose and able to lock into each other that is an issue.

In the spotlight...

Different mechanisms are currently coming under the microscope. Think the supplementary protection certificate, or SPC, waiver currently under discussion in Council, which is running out of time if all are to agree on the way forward before a new Commission moves into the Berlaymont in just over a year.

Think arguments over health care funding in the Horizon Europe budget and how much cash down-the-line will feed translational research, with divisions over the current Presidency’s (Austria) plans to put a cap on money that will be earmarked for partnerships with industry. This could include the Innovative Medicines Initiative.

Think shortages of medicines, which vary from member state to member state but are clearly a problem (just ask the pharmacists up and down the EU). The UK is particularly worried about this in a worst-case post-Brexit scenario.

And think health technology assessment (aka HTA) and the ongoing discussions surrounding the Commission’s and Parliament's drive towards mandatory joint assessments across the whole EU, which is being resisted in some highly influential quarters.

On top of all this we have very recently had a Commission and OECD co-report called ‘Health at a Glance’ that brings wasteful healthcare spending in Europe into sharp focus.

The report states that improvements in life expectancy have slowed “markedly” in the EU, and that unnecessary hospital visits for chronic conditions come in at a staggering 37 million bed-days a year, on estimate.

It also called out the high price of medicines.

And so much for EU equality - those on low incomes are apparently five times more likely to have unmet care needs than the more well-heeled. Meanwhile, 4% of GDP across Europe each year is lost through mental illness.

In a nutshell, patient access to innovative personalised medicine technology and services is suboptimal and varies dramatically between EU member states.

It is a fact that existing evidence has shown clearly that countries actively managing rational use have lower spending growth for medicines as a whole, for example - and therefore more potential ‘headroom for innovation’.

Yet is is also a fact that a new medicine or innovative product can sometimes take as long as 20 years or more to get from bench to bedside is not only clearly undesirable but is arguably unacceptable in the 21st century.

And even after all those years of translation, patient access in the absence of flexible pricing and reimbursement systems is frequently restricted to patient subgroups and often further delayed or not affordable in less affluent parts of Europe.

Proposed solutions range from better coordination and collaboration models between stakeholders and decision makers at various stages within the bench-to-bedside timeframe to more sophisticated pricing, reimbursement and funding mechanisms as well as effective forms of utilization management to address the inherent complexity of personalised medicine.

Naujovės ir jos paskatos yra gyvybiškai svarbios sveikatai ir turtui dabartinėje ES-28 (ir bus dar svarbiau, kai JK paliks ateinančius metus). Tai taip pat skatina investicijas iš ES nepriklausančių šalių, akivaizdžiai naudingas verslui ir darbo vietoms.

When linked together in an optimal manner, the above will contribute to better access for patients to the best new treatments.

Patients need this better access and they need it now. To register for the event, please click ČIA ir please click ČIA peržiūrėti darbotvarkę. 

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