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Seeking response not just in words and plans but in action - EAPM lung cancer report

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Welcome everyone to the first European Alliance for Personalised Medicine (EAPM) update of the week – EAPM is keenly anticipating its German EU Presidency conference, and has much to report on its recent round table at the ESMO event on 18 September concerning lung cancer. The report is available by clicking herewrites EAPM Executive Director Denis Horgan.

German EU Presidency conference

EAPM is looking forward with great excitement to its organization of the upcoming German EU Presidency conference on 12 October. Given the present circumstances with COVID-19, the conference will of course be online, but it will be featuring keynote speakers from the world of health and elsewhere – EAPM’s role in the conference has always proved popular in previous years, and time is ticking away – you can find the agenda here, and register here.

EAPM lung cancer report: ‘Seeking Response Not Just In Words And Plans But In Action'

With EAPM’s round table, organized in the margins of ESMO 2020, EAPM deepened the collaboration generated at its March 2017 Presidency Conference on ‘Innovation and Screening in Lung Cancer - The Future’. Since EAPM was created in 2009 it has been contributing actively to EU cancer policy, from the European Partnership for Action Against Cancer in 2009 and CANCON 1, to the numerous initiatives that followed. The Alliance has helped to shape awareness among stakeholders and policymakers over recent years about the needs of modern-day patients, and about the potential of personalised medicine to change healthcare for the better.

The report is available by clicking here.

The round table brought cancer experts from across Europe together in a display of ample evidence of future promise – and also plenty of demonstration of the persistent barriers to realizing that promise across Europe. Lung cancer five-year survival rates have improved – but still remain low. The technology for diagnosis is improving all the time, but patients face long waiting times, particularly in transfer from primary to specialist care, and diagnosis is often delayed. And although novel approaches offer the prospect of outcomes that go beyond the simple measure of survival, health care systems have yet to adapt to more sensitive outcome measurements – which can leave patients insufficiently monitored, and the full value of new approaches going under-recognized and under-funded. This must be addressed, the round table concluded. 

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Concluding action points for discussions in the context of the EU’s Beating Cancer Plan, Cancer Mission, EU Health Data Space, the review of research incentives in its orphan drug rules, the Pharmaceutical Strategy, the draft EU-4Health programme and the promised European Health Union were the following:

Towards policymakers:

  • Promote investment in high quality testing (via Cancer Mission)

  • Promote common approach to assessment of new technologies among

  • HTA and regulators

  • Promote support among regulators for the use of real-world data for approval and reimbursement of new therapies

  • Promote support for regional/national patient registries for Real World Evidence

  • Promote support for adequate laboratory and data infrastructure in Europe

  • Promote interpretations of General Data Protection Regulation that permit data use for research

  • Promote investment in outcomes data, with focus on patient experience.

Towards stakeholders:

  • Ensure patient opinion is incorporated into discussions of evidence bases

  • Ensure continued co-operation among stakeholders on pan-cancer studies

  • Ensure rapid delivery of high-quality and clear test results for therapeutic decision-making

  • Collaborate in clear messaging to policymakers on areas of agreement

 Coronavirus deaths pass 1 million

The global death toll from COVID-19 rose past 1 million today (29 September), according to a Reuters tally, a bleak milestone in a pandemic that has devastated the global economy, overloaded health systems and changed the way people live. The number of deaths from the novel coronavirus this year is now double the number of people who die annually from malaria – and the death rate has increased in recent weeks as infections surge in several countries. “Our world has reached an agonizing milestone,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement. “It’s a mind-numbing figure. Yet we must never lose sight of each and every individual life. They were fathers and mothers, wives and husbands, brothers and sisters, friends and colleagues.” And the World Health Organization has warned that there could be 2 million deaths before a vaccine is ready to use.

Coronavirus could overwhelm France, top doctor warns

France will face a months-long coronavirus epidemic that will overwhelm its health system if something does not change, one of the country's top medical figures warned Sunday. "The second wave is arriving faster than we thought," Patrick Bouet, head of the National Council of the Order of Doctors, told the weekly Journal du Dimanche. Fresh restrictions to slow the spread of the disease in the country's worst-hit areas, including the Mediterranean city of Marseille and the Paris region, have run into local resistance. Bouet told the paper that warnings delivered this week by Health Minister Olivier Veran had not gone far enough. "He didn't say that in three to four weeks, if nothing changes, France will face a widespread outbreak across its whole territory, for several long autumn and winter months," Bouet said. 

Not very ‘App’-y

Ongoing problems with the coronavirus apps have their effectiveness thus far proving much less than was originally billed. In the UK, the NHS COVID-19 app does not yet accept test results processed in the country’s state-run laboratories, hospitals or as part of an official survey. 

And the European Commission’s headquarters in Brussels, the Berlaymont, is set today to provide an update about how six of the bloc’s national coronavirus apps will be able to work with each other after an initial cross-border trial began earlier this month. The project is expected to go live sometime over the next couple of weeks, and will allow local apps to share data with each other (if everything goes to plan).

Strasbourg week shifted to Brussels...again

European Parliament President David Sassoli said on Monday (28 September) that yet another trip to Strasbourg, foreseen for 5 to 8 October, will now be taking place in Brussels. “The plenary of the European Parliament will take place in Brussels,” he wrote in a note to MEPs, citing “public health considerations.”

Renew Europe’s Trillet-Lenoir named Parliament lead on cancer file

French Renew MEP Véronique Trillet-Lenoir was today appointed as the rapporteur for the European Parliament’s cancer report. Trillet-Lenoir is an oncologist by training and was on the board of directors of the French National Cancer Institute. As the lead MEP, she will put forward a working document on October 12 to provide input for the European Commission on its Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan, which should be published in the fourth quarter of 2020.

And that is all from EAPM for now – don’t forget, time is running out to register for EAPM’s upcoming German EU Presidency conference on 12 October, agenda here, and register here. See you at the end of the week, and stay safe. The lung cancer report may be found by clicking here.

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