Brussels group ‘lukewarm’ on EU health draft

By European Alliance for Personalised Medicine (EAPM) Executive Director Denis Horgan

A potentially highly influential Opinion on health services from a European Commission Expert Panel will receive first reactions today (6 November) from a Brussels-based healthcare group, among other stakeholders across Europe.

The public consultation on the preliminary opinion on 'Access to health services in the European Union', on effective ways of investing in health, has received a lukewarm reception from the European Alliance for Personalised Medicine (EAPM) which has submitted a document outlining what it believes is missing from the draft, or should be strengthened.

The call for public input closes today, and the multi-stakeholder Alliance, whose members include patients, physicians, scientists, academics, researchers, industry representatives and policy experts, has filed an eight-page submission with dozens of key comments.

These begin with the concept of ‘value’, and EAPM’s contention that those responsible for the provision of modern-day healthcare, in a Europe of 500 million potential patients across 28 member states, should not consider financial concerns only as the basis for all discussion and progression.

Tom Van Der Wal, cancer patient survivor, a member of the Alliance, said: “There is a solid argument that value should always be defined in respect of the ‘customer’, Value in health care depends on results and outcomes – vital to the patient -  regardless of the volume of services delivered, yet it appears that elsewhere the value is always going to be seen as relative to cost.

”For this and other reasons,” he added “patients should always be involved at all levels on any discussions about what constitutes value. The Commission needs to understand this.” The Alliance writes that “health care in the 21^st century must be about putting patients at the centre of their own healthcare decisions as well as allowing and facilitating innovation, through investment in research and workable reimbursement policies at the pan-European level.

“In this sense, incentivizing access to health technologies that bring value to patients and health systems across Europe, whether they be medicines, therapeutic interventions or medical technologies such as diagnostics, should be the guiding principle for the selection and provision of health services and their implementation at the pan-European level.”

“Investing in health as a human capital,” the Alliance continues, “as recognized by the European Commission, will bring the value of improved health outcomes for individual patients and society, contribute to the sustainability of health systems and drive economic growth.”

EAPM believes that in order to achieve a 'Healthy Europe', effective but affordable health care that is matched to patients’ needs must be delivered. Adopting personalised medicine is a priority at European level, it maintains, to ensure improved health outcomes and help promote the economic sustainability of European health systems.

One recommendation in the Commission draft reads: ‘It is important for public funding to be used effectively, rather than simply driving up the prices of resources whose supply is constrained, such as technology or highly specialised staff’.”

EAPM took the opportunity to emphasise that patient access to innovative personalised medicine remains sub-optimal and varies dramatically between EU Member States.

It wrote: “The fact that a new medicine or innovative product usually takes more than a decade to get from bench-to-bedside is not only clearly undesirable but is arguably unacceptable in the 21st century.

“The public is one of the most important stakeholders in decisions related to personalised medicine, yet there is a paucity of studies regarding citizens’ values, concerns and expectations. Further efforts to engage with the public are warranted, in order to inform the effective, efficient and equitable translation of personalised medicine into clinical practice.”

EAPM’s submission also included recommendations on rewarding innovation, improving HTA methodology, streamlining legislation, encouraging research, the benefit/risk of gathering ‘real-world evidence’ and other aspects.