Building a permanent science-driven public infrastructure that would perform both biomedical research and development, with the mission to deliver affordable medical innovation to everyone: a detailed proposal, originally born within the ForumDD and today supported by a wide range of very high-level scientists and civic organisations all over Europe, was discussed and taken very seriously on 28 September in the European Parliament at the request of the Science and Technology Assessment Panel
On the 28th of September Massimo Florio presented the STOA study: ‘European pharmaceutical research and development: Could a public infrastructure overcome market failures?’. The workshop brought together biomedical research experts, pharmaceutical industry representatives and EU and international public health experts to discuss the state of the current EU pharmaceutical strategy and explore policy options to strengthen preparedness and EU response, including the feasibility of creating an advanced pharmaceutical infrastructure in Europe for the research and development of new drugs and treatments.
The Panel discussion was moderated by Karin SIPIDO, Head of Experimental Cardiology, KU Leuven. The following experts took part at the discussion: Giulia Del Brenna, Head of Unit, Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (GROW), European Commission; Arjon Van Hengel, Deputy Head of Unit, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (RTD), European Commission; Christian Wimmer, Senior Expert, Directorate-General for Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA), European Commission; Jacques Demotes, Director-General, European Clinical Research Infrastructure Network (ECRIN); Rolf Apweiler, Director, European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL); Els Torreele, Policy Associate, UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose; Rosa Castro, Senior Policy Manager, European Public Health Alliance (EPHA); Salah Dine Chibout, Chair of the Research & Innovation Strategy Group, European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA); Emily Erbelding, Director, Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, NIAID/NIH.
The video of the event is available at the following link: https://multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/en/webstreaming/panel-for-future-of-science-and-technology_20220928-1500-SPECIAL-STOA
Few days after the presentation, Massimo Florio was interviewed by National Swiss Radio (to listen to the podcast click here). During the interview Prof. Florio talked about the proposal, that will be a European public enterprise, financed by the countries of the European Union but also by Switzerland and UK, which deals with biomedical research, drugs and vaccines, removing the monopoly from the large pharmaceutical industry and avoiding distortions in terms of inequalities, costs and, above all, access to health.
