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Patients' Think Tank

The last Think Tank took place on 19 June at Efpia offices. This meeting discussed a number of different initiatives to increase patients’ awareness and empowerment with regards with medicines and treatments.

Jim Thomson from ASOP EU introduced the Alliance for Safe Medicines acting against counterfeited medicines and secures safe online pharmacy. ASOP EU is looking to engage more with patients to ensure dissemination of EU ASOP recommendations and to benefit from patients’ opinions and experiences.

ZonMw – the Dutch organisation for Health Research and Development – has developed a project to improve knowledge transfer between all healthcare stakeholders. Meralda Slager managing the project for ZonMw presented the conclusions of the project’s first workshop and the objectives of the next one. Participants were all invited to attend.

Similarly, participants were also updated on the IMI project EUPATI enabling patients to understand therapeutic innovations. After the project Annual Conference, conclusions were debated by the Think Tank to assess how to increase the uptake of this project and in particular by industry.

The rest of the meeting provided participants with an update on the Clinical Trials debate and political agenda in the European Parliament. Presentations summarizing positions of Efpia and EPF were distributed. The sessions closed with the announcement of the new Steering Committee members:

  • Amgen - Mary Uhlenhopp
  • EMHF - Ian Banks
  • Sanofi - Eric Racine
  • VFA - Barbara Haake
  • Eurordis - Flaminia Macchia
  • GAMIAN - Paul Arteel

The next meeting will take place at Efpia on 19 September 2013 and 13 December 2013.