Don’t let Europe’s health sail into the sunset

By European Alliance for Personalised Medicine Executive Director Denis Horgan

Today (9 September) the European Commission President, Jean-Claude Juncker, delivered his ‘State of the Union’ address. In between declarations about the Union needing ‘more Europe’, as well as the occasional sea-faring metaphor, the president touched on points of particular interest to those in the health-care industries. “No wind favours he who has no destined port – we need to know where we are headed. It is time to speak frankly about the big issues facing the European Union,” he said.   

Juncker went on to mention the “deeply political question, (of) whether you increase VAT on medicines in   a country where 30% of the population is no longer covered by the public health system as a result of the crisis. Or whether you cut military expenditure instead.”

Acknowledging the fast-changing world of science while flying a flag for the commission he said that we are heading towards a situation where: “In health clinics in Barcelona, better treatment will be available to patients through new plasma derived therapies, funded by the Investment Fund. In Limerick and other locations in Ireland, families will have improved access to primary healthcare and social services through 14 new primary care centres. This is just the beginning, with many more projects like these to follow.”

The president continued by saying: “What we need is to recreate a process of convergence, both between member states and within societies, with productivity, job creation and social fairness at its core.”

And he added that, on the back of European Commission projects such as the Digital Single Market, Capital Markets Union and the Energy Union, Europe is “reducing obstacles to activities cross-border and   using the scale of our continent to stimulate innovation, connecting talents and offering a wider choice of products and services”. Perhaps. But not enough.  The Brussels-based European Alliance for Personalised Medicine (EAPM) would argue that one way to   achieve ‘more Europe’ in terms of the improved health of 500 million citizens across 28 member states is much better cross-border collaborations, especially in health, than the levels that the president was referring to. Because while Europe continues to produce excellent science that provides an increasing insight into the role of biology in health and disease, our ability to translate these research discoveries into patient benefits are undermined by the structures and regulations currently in place at European and national levels.

A fragmentation of the research effort across Europe and the lack of a clearly defined road map for translation of research discoveries for clinical implementation are hampering the delivery of the personalised medicine agenda.     But that’s only part of it. The bottom-line is that many healthcare professionals would have preferred that   President Juncker had put more of a focus on health and personalised medicine when setting out his list   of priorities for his term in office and, indeed, added more focus today.

A healthy Europe means a wealthy Europe and the lack of prioritizing health could be called a missed opportunity. Though, to be fair, and to expand upon Juncker’s metaphor, EAPM is confident that Europe hasn’t entirely missed the boat. However, what is clear is that the EU as a whole needs to take urgent action in the area of health. Nobody says it will be easy but, while consensus is not always possible, there definitely needs to be a coalition of the willing to sail onwards to the eventual goal of the right treatment for the right patient at the right time and access, for all, to the best healthcare and treatments available.

Juncker and his commission, in tandem with the European Parliament, need to acknowledge that if Europe waits to reach consensus on every single action, that will effectively translate into inaction – as we have seen countless times. To continue the boat metaphor, Europe is on a journey and, while every sailor prefers a safe harbour on his journey, if he cannot get into that harbour today, then the boat must sail on. So when the president talks of ‘more Europe’ for the Union, what he should be advocating is stronger cross-border sharing of Big Data, a ditching of silo mentalities, flexible regulations that take into account advances in science and technology plus proper implementation of the cross-border health directives for the benefit of every citizen. Otherwise his ship will sink to the murky depths taking its ever-growing crew and passengers with it.

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