The number of people diagnosed with cancer in Europe has risen by approximately 50% over the past two decades, representing an increasing burden on European healthcare systems. EFPIA and its members are committed to supporting, and working together with, the cancer community to achieve better outcomes for people with cancer in Europe, and have identified three priority areas to achieve this:

1. Improving the sustainability and integration of cancer care

   In response to the growing incidence and prevalence of cancer, policy-makers at European and national level need to give appropriate priority to cancer, including sufficient levels of funding for prevention, screening, treatment and survivorship

2. Accelerating the time it takes to get new treatments to patients

   To enable timely patient access to promising new treatments, regulatory, healthcare technology assessment and payer decision-making processes need to evolve. They must recognise the need for patient-focussed assessments of benefit, consideration of surrogate endpoints, comprehensive patient involvement, and appropriate data monitoring to confirm expected benefits over time

3. Developing tailored pricing and reimbursement models for cancer medicines

   Novel pricing and payment models have the potential to further accelerate patient access, allowing payers to manage clinical uncertainty, budget impact and sustainability of healthcare systems, whilst providing sufficient incentives for innovation. We are keen to work with the stakeholder community to encourage the wider and appropriate adoption of these models by healthcare systems across Europe

   We believe that we, as industry partners, have an important role to play. We are working with stakeholders across Europe on initiatives addressing all three priority areas and look forward to future collaborations to ensure patients continue to benefit from scientific progress in cancer care.