Greetings all, and please find EAPM’s monthly newsletter by clicking here. Prior to tipping into our previous month, November, and the start of December, we still have our virtual lung cancer screening conference on 10 December, with a wide range of great speakers, a variety of hot topics, and lively Q & A sessions to keep everyone involved, writes European Alliance for Personalised Medicine(EAPM) Executive Director Denis Horgan.

Lung cancer screening round table

The round table is entitled ‘Lung Cancer & Early Diagnosis: The Evidence Exists for Lung Screening Guidelines in the EU’, and the idea is to present a case for the co-ordinated implementation of lung-cancer screening across the EU Region.You can check out the agenda of the EAPM 10 December conference on lung-cancer screening here, and register here. In addition, much information can be found in EAPM’s latest newsletter, which is available here.

A perspective on Alzheimer’s Disease (AD)

In addition, EAPM recently launched an academic publication on Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), with a multistakeholder perspective to tackle the issue of biomarkers, entitled Piercing the Fog of Alzheimer’s and Related Dementia. The paper is available here.

End of Horizon 2020, looking to the future 

 Horizon 2020 has ben the largest research and innovation funding programme in the whole world. It has had a duration of seven years and ends this month. The successor programme is called Horizon Europe and will be from January 2021 till December 2027. The Commission's proposal for Horizon Europe is an ambitious €100 billion research and innovation programme to succeed Horizon 2020. The European Parliament and the Council of the EU reached in March and April 2019 a provisional agreement on Horizon Europe.

The European Parliament endorsed the provisional agreement on 17 April 2019. Following the political agreement, the Commission has begun a strategic planning process. The result of the process will be set out in a multiannual Strategic Plan to prepare the content in the work programmes and calls for proposal for the first 4 years of Horizon Europe. The strategic planning process will focus in particular on the global challenges and European industrial competitiveness pillar of Horizon Europe. It will also cover the widening participation and strengthening the European Research Area part of the programme as well as relevant activities in other pillars.

Portugal sets out enhanced health co-operation

The Portuguese government will “promote enhanced cooperation between member states in the area of health,” a draft document outlining the government’s priorities for its upcoming Council presidency has announced. The aim is to help “produce and distribute a safe and accessible vaccine”.

COVID-19 delaying cancer advances nearly 18 months, say researchers 

Cancer researchers are afraid advances for patients of the oft-terminal disease may suffer delays of nearly one and a half years — because of the massive reallocation of global resources to fight the COVID-19 crisis, according to a recent survey shared in a blog post shared on the Institute of Cancer Research's website. The scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) in London told the survey their own research advances would sadly see a delay — on average, six months long — because of the initial lockdown, and subsequent restrictions on laboratory capacity, in addition to the unavailability of national scientific facilities, reports MedicalXpress. With wider effects on charity funds, including disruption of collaboration and interpersonal teamwork between scientists, and the reallocation of research efforts to thwart the COVID-19 crisis, the respondents predict major advances in cancer research would suffer a delay of 17 months, on average.

However, the researchers emphasized how scientific procedures have adapted in several ways to the pandemic — noting how long-lasting damage to cancer research might be mitigated with extra funding from charitable donations, and support from national governments. This is why the researchers called for staffing investment, and new technology like robotics and computing power.

The ICR has discovered more drugs to help cancer patients than any other academic centre in the world — but like many other research institutes it was hit hard with cuts to fundraising income, and grants from other various charities. Consequently, the ICR had to put much of its work on hold amid the initial lockdown, and is as of writing running a critical fundraising appeal to kick-start its research and recover its losses in the race to treat and eventually cure cancer.

EU seeks fast-track bypassing of pharma patents in emergencies 

The European Union wants faster procedures to produce generic versions of drugs without the consent of patent holders, an EU document says, in a move meant to bypass usual intellectual rights protections in exceptional circumstances.

So-called compulsory licensing is allowed under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules in emergencies as a waiver of normal regulations and could be applied during the COVID-19 pandemic. “The Commission sees the need to ensure that effective systems for issuing compulsory licences are in place, to be used as a means of last resort and a safety net, when all other efforts to make IP (intellectual property) available have failed,” the document published last week said. The measure, if ever applied, would effectively allow EU states to produce generic drugs without the consent of the pharmaceutical companies that developed them and still own the intellectual property rights.

Health Union

 Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who has spent precisely a year in office as of today (1 December), is commemorating the occasion with a debate with S&D group leader Iratxe García and health ministers from Italy, Spain and Sweden on how to move forward with the European Health Union which she has called for

So, who gets the coronavirus vaccine first in the US?

 After months of deliberation and debate, a panel of independent experts in the US advising the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is set to decide today (1 December) which Americans it will recommend to get the coronavirus vaccine first, while supply is still short.

The panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, will vote in a public meeting on Tuesday afternoon, and it is expected to advise that health care workers be first in line, along with residents of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.

If the C.D.C. director, Dr. Robert R. Redfield, approves the recommendations, they will be shared with states, which are preparing to receive their first vaccine shipments as soon as mid-December, if the Food and Drug Administration approves an application for emergency use of a vaccine developed by Pfizer. States don’t have to follow the C.D.C.’s recommendations, but most probably will, said Dr. Marcus Plescia, the chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, which represents state health agencies.

The committee will meet again soon to vote on which groups should be next to receive priority. Here are answers to some common questions about the vaccine and its distribution. Who will get the vaccine first? Based on its recent discussions, the C.D.C. committee will almost certainly recommend that the nation’s 21 million health care workers be eligible before anyone else, along with three million mostly elderly people living in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.

And that is everything to start your first week in December – don’t forget, you can still check out the agenda for EAPM’s 10 December event on lung cancer screening here, register here, and the newsletter is available here. Have an excellent and safe start to your week.