Patients in Europe need early access to modern medicines

The General Assembly of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) has elected Arthur J. Higgins, Chairman of the Board of Management of Bayer HealthCare AG, as its new President. In this role, he succeeds Dr. Franz B. Humer, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Hoffmann-La Roche AG who will be EFPIA Vice-President together with Jean-François Dehecq, Chairman of Sanofi-Aventis SA.

At EFPIA´s Annual Meetings (30 May-1 June 2007), bringing together over 350 senior executives of the pharmaceutical industry in Europe as well as representatives of European and national policy-makers, patients organizations, healthcare professionals and international journalists, the new President presented his vision about the future of the pharmaceutical industry in Europe.

The Vision: all stakeholders working together towards healthcare systems for the 21st century

The vision elucidates modern and sustainable healthcare systems in Europe, where patients have equal and early access to the best and safest medicines, which supports innovation, empowers citizens to make informed decisions about their health and ensures the highest security of the drug supply chain.

According to Higgins, turning this vision into reality necessitates working in partnership with all key stakeholders, in order to enhance mutual understanding and trust: “Only with a new-found public trust will we be able to face the many challenges of our industry and ensure the proper conditions for our industry to thrive.”

“AIMS” - strategic priorities for the European pharmaceutical industry

During his EFPIA Presidency, Arthur J. Higgins will focus the industry’s efforts to strengthen competitiveness around four key areas regrouped under the “AIMS” (Access, Innovation, Mobilization, Security) umbrella:

Access

Access refers to the need to continue to work towards speeding up regulatory approval and reimbursement processes for new medicines; removing government controls on medicines that are not reimbursed (Recommendation 6 of the G10); and ensuring that Health Technology Assessment (HTA) does not become a fourth hurdle to market access.

A main deliverable under ACCESS is to proactively establish best practices on HTA methodologies that are acceptable to the industry and improve the consistency and transparency of the process in all Member States.

Innovation

Innovation focuses on efforts towards creating a strong science base in Europe and making Europe an attractive location for the best researchers; ensuring a fair reward for innovation (including incremental innovation); fighting damaging cost-containment policies that kill innovation; and ensuring a high level of protection for Intellectual Property Rights.

A key deliverable under INNOVATION is to ensure that the IMI (Innovative Medicines Initiative) becomes a reality by the first half of 2008.

Mobilization

Mobilization is about how the industry joins forces with key stakeholders with the aim of identifying better ways to address the challenges of an ageing population and deliver modern and sustainable healthcare; empowering patients and citizens to take an active role in managing their health through better access to information from multiple sources.

A main deliverable under MOBILIZATION is to seek the liberalization of the current framework for information to patients.

Security

Security refers to the need to strengthen the integrity and transparency of our drug supply chain by addressing the safety concerns of parallel trade; raising public awareness on the risk of counterfeits as a catalyst for actions now; and increasing the traceability of pharmaceuticals.

To improve the SECURITY of our supply chain, one of the target deliverables is to pilot a system that facilitates the tracing of our products.

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