On World Cancer Day 2014, the European Alliance for Personalised Medicine challenged the EU to use all its power to promote research to make life better for Europe’s patients.
Speaking on behalf of the Alliance, which brings together patients, medical professionals, healthcare planners, scientists, industry and researchers, Co-Chair Helmut Brand said:
“In light of the revelations in yesterday’s EU anti-corruption report, evidencing that in some Member States patients have to pay bribes to get the right treatment, Europe clearly needs to move faster and more innovatively to look after all of its patients.”
Research is key, as is access for patients to affordable and effective, innovative treatment. EAPM have identified five STEPs towards a healthier Europe and are calling on European legislators to urgently address these issues.
• STEP 1: Ensure a regulatory environment which allows early and equal patient access to novel and efficacious personalised medicine (PM) so as to decrease health inequalities
• STEP 2: Increase research and development for PM, while recognising its value
• STEP 3: Improve the education and training of healthcare professionals
• STEP 4: Support new approaches to reimbursement and HTA assessment, required for patient equal access to PM
• STEP 5: Increase awareness and understanding of PM
Brand states that “Achieving these goals will, without question, improve the quality of life for patients across Europe. To aim lower would be frankly irresponsible and certainly unacceptable to 500 million citizens.”
A cross-party and cross-border MEP group, including Nessa Childers, Petru Luhan, Marisa Matias, Sean Kelly, Sirpa Pietikainen and Ria Oomen-Ruijten said in a joint statement:
“One of our most important missions as politicians is to ensure that any citizen across the European Union fully enjoys his or her right for access to high quality healthcare and medical products. We recognise that personalised medicine has the potential to realise the vision of being able to improve overall health, and the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases.”
Prof Gordon McVie, from the European Institute of Oncology and Managing editor of ecancer, focused on the discrepancy between richer and poorer countries, saying:
“While personalised medicine has come of age in richer countries, treatments now should match each patient's individual cancers and their special cognitive personalities, and if we can improve the public understanding of the new ways to defeat cancer, patients will be better equipped to take responsibility for their own treatment."
Industry is also playing its part, working hard to make its contribution, according to Niko Andre, Global Medical Director of Hematology and Oncology at Roche, who said:
“We have made great strides in our ability to recognise and target particular characteristics of individual cancer situations, and with the potential for further advances in this area, we are hopeful of seeing significant improvements for patients in the future. Therefore, it is vital that all stakeholders – including societies, healthcare providers, industry and regulators – continue to understand that the key to progress is investment in innovation.”
The European Alliance for Personalised Medicine brings together Europe's leading healthcare experts and patient advocates to improve patient care by accelerating the development, delivery and uptake of personalised medicine and diagnostics. It is calling for the European Commission, the European Parliament and EU member states to help improve the regulatory environment so that patients can have early access to personalised medicine, and so that research is boosted.
