How to make access to Personalised Medicine a reality for a larger amount of citizens and contribute to integrating Personalised Medecine into clinical practice?
Against the background that Personalised Medicine being more than ever at the heart of societal debate, the Luxembourg Presidency wishes to launch a process of reflection centered around the public health dimension.
On 8 July 2015, the High Level conference has attracted many stakeholders to Luxembourg: public health decision makers, representatives from the Commission, patient organisations and various other European umbrella organizations representing interest groups and associations actively engaged in the field of Personalised Medicine.
A patient-centered concept as referring to innovation tailored for specific individual needs
Health Minister Lydia Mutsch stressed: “Personalised Medicine is all about the patient and innovation. Personalised Medicine starts with the patient. It features big potential for improving the health of many patients and ensuring better outcomes of health systems’ efficiency and transparency”.
Moreover, in times of budgetary constraints, facilitating better-targeted and more cost-efficient treatment - to a potential 500 million patients in 28 EU Member States - is in line with the Europe 2020 strategy and the aims of the Juncker Commission.
“The challenge to be addressed is to put into place a framework which allows to deliver the right treatment to the right patient at the right moment, in accordance with the principle of universal access to high quality health care” said Lydia Mutsch.
Yet, its integration into clinical practice and daily care is proving difficult given the many barriers and challenges to timely access to targeted healthcare that still exist as of today.
Towards a long term European approach
How can Personalised Medicine contribute to a better health of a large amount of citizens as well as to enhanced financial sustainability of our healthcare systems? How to achieve a more targeted use of healthcare services? From which best practices across Europe can we learn?
Those were only some of the questions that were raised during the Conference whose main messages will feed into the Council conclusions that are to be adopted by the 28 health ministers during the Council on the 8th of December 2015.
For Commissioner Vytenis Andriukaitis, the aim of the Conference is to make Personalised Medicine evolve from a "tailor made" approach towards a concept accessible for all, by means of a reinforced cooperation at European level in several fields that, today, constitute obstacles to the integration of Personalised Medicine. "Personalisation will change prevention programmes for obesity or cancer and other complex chronic conditions – we need to find out how", said furthermore Andriukaitis.
Cooperation between Member States is crucial in order to make access to Personalised Medicine a reality for patients.
The Luxembourg Presidency aims to lay the ground for a long term patient centered strategy involving EU decision makers and regulators in the area of public health, involving all relevant stakeholders.
Press release from the Ministry of Health.