Innovation plays a key role in all areas of human activity. However, its contribution to the health sector, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, is now indisputable.
As the General Manager of PhARMA Innovation Forum Greece, Mariangela Ekonomopoulou, tells NEWS247: «The enormous positive impact of innovation on people’s lives is additionally attested by the increase in life expectancy, the elimination of diseases and therapeutic leaps in almost all therapeutic categories. It is not, however, limited to the above».
Then, she adds: «Innovation is a key contributor to the improvement and sustainability of the health care systems, if we consider for example the reduction of mortality, the reduction of the need for hospital care, the treatment of chronic diseases, one of the biggest drivers of costs for healthcare systems worldwide. In addition, investing in innovation in Health benefits the economy in multiple ways, whether you consider the creation of jobs, or measure the benefit from conducting clinical trials».
«In everyday practice, however, the evaluation of innovation is largely determined by the value framework that shapes each country’s healthcare system. If everything has to be…squeezed into a one-dimensional conceptual model, which evaluates innovation only as another cost, everything mentioned above is degraded and does not receive the value it deserves».
PIF for Patients’ needs
A standard value for PhARMA Innovation Forum and for its member companies is that Health should in no way be treated as a cost center, but as a good that everyone should be able to access. A wider consensus from all the authorities, who shape health policy in our country on this principle, would directly lead to the formation of a healthcare system, which will be able to reap all the benefits that innovation can undoubtedly offer.
Ms. Economopoulou points out that with this rationale, PhARMA Innovation Forum has undertaken the initiative to organize a series of closed working sessions, in which representatives from different areas of the industry are invited to participate, including Patient Advocacy Groups, scientific associations, specialized health centers, representatives of the political leadership and also members of the innovative pharmaceutical industry.
«As part of the “Meeting Patients’ Needs” initiative, each session is dedicated to a different therapeutic category and the central question in all of them is what needs to be improved as a priority, with the aim of meeting patients’ needs and their access as best as possible to the most innovative treatments. Already in the first two sessions, dedicated to Oncology and Hematology respectively, it became clear from all parties involved that we need to leave behind the reduced concept of health as a cost, in order to be able to take steps forward», says PIF’s General Manager.
«These steps certainly include registering health needs, setting health priorities, ensuring universal access to pharmaceutical innovation, increasing the pharma budget, and having a single pharmaceutical budget, revising the mandatory refunds system, consolidating of predictability and transparency throughout the distribution chain of pharmaceutical products. At the same time, the collection and publication of data, which will allow the taking of informed resource allocation decisions, the participation of patients in decision-making and the emphasis on the scientific documentation of the available options, are absolutely necessary parameters».
«If we have to focus a little more on some important issues, surely dominant among them would be the system of mandatory refunds. Without an industry’s contribution of more than €1.5 billion in clawback in 2022 (to which must be added more than €0.5 billion in volume rebates), many patients would not be able to receive the necessary treatments for their condition. In addition, all new innovative treatments, are subject to mandatory refunds that exceed 60% and in some cases reach 70%. It is evident that the amount of these mandatory refunds endangers the viability of the innovative pharmaceutical industry and creates risks in ensuring patients’ access to innovative therapies, necessary for the treatment of serious and life-threatening diseases», underlines Ms. Mariangela Ekonomopoulou.
PIF’s proposals for the pharmaceutical Healthcare
PhARMA Innovation Forum Greece (PIF) has repeatedly publicly submitted its views on the priorities for improving the effectiveness and efficiency of pharmaceutical healthcare in Greece.
As already explained, there is a need for interventions at the level of pricing of pharmaceutical treatments, the evaluation of new health technologies, the strengthening of clinical research and innovation at all levels of the system.
«Furthermore, we insist on the need for a rational financing system, for transparency through data disclosure and analysis, for making informed health policy decisions and, of course, for the implementation of demand control measures, mainly through the integration of the electronic patient record, the development of patient registries, establishment of clinical protocols and quality control across the care spectrum».
«All this requires broader consensus, political and economic stability and brave initiatives on the part of all the stakeholders. They are, however, necessary steps for a sustainable healthcare system, which will have as its main priority meeting patients’ needs and achieving their access to the best and most effective treatments», concludes Ms. Economopoulou.
*The article was originally published in www.news247.gr
