Politics and Policy
The most recent plan for reforming France’s healthcare system has been widely discussed in local and international media last month. French President Emmanuel Macron has promised extra money and more doctors for the country’s healthcare system. Reforms would also aim to improve services in parts of the country referred to as “medical deserts” and to address problems related to how hospitals are organized. The working structure and the medical pricing systems would also be reformed after a nation-wide evaluation.
Macron’s plan also seeks to lower the entry standards for French graduates seeking jobs in the national healthcare system.As it stands, new graduates can get a job only after passing, in Macron’s words, a “terrifying” exam. The French healthcare system has long been one of the country’s most internationalized sectors. – Doctors from all over the world were compete for jobs in France, and the high standards required of the workforce are meant to ensure that France gets the best medical personnel. But the best doctors tend to flock to high-paid positions in urban areas, exacerbating the disparities between France’s urban and rural communities. France also has a high youth unemployment rate. Rather than a focus on drawing top medical personnel from abroad to serve in rural areas, Macron wants to herd French graduates into the system by modifying entry standards. Volunteering would also be permitted as a way for graduates to gain experience.
Critics say the reform plan is a short-term fix that will incur a high long-term cost, but Macron is getting some of the political support his government needs, by effectively nationalizing the healthcare system while also seeking to address a stringent social problem.
Lawmakers in Europe’s biggest drug market are calling for faster adoption of biosimilars – cheaper copies of biotech drugs to treat autoimmune diseases and cancer. Handlesblatt reported that Germany Health Minister Jens Spahn said biosimilars would have saved the healthcare system 279 million euros ($315 million) last year. The German healthcare system is decentralized, and physicians are free to prescribe whatever brand of drug they think is best. However, they are legally bound to observe cost efficiency. The health minister’s calls may be followed by some policy changes with regards to the pricing system currently in place, aiming to incentivize faster adoption. Biosimilars are widely available at the national level. However, the transition from biotech drugs to biosimilars varies from state to state.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb wrote in a statement that the agency is “making efforts” to adapt its regulatory framework so that it may allow needed modernization in drug development, promoting innovation of targeted therapies. The FDA is focused on securing and promoting new technologies that create opportunities to modify the mechanisms that cause a disease, to possibly reverse them, and thus to terminate disease. Among these technologies are cell and gene therapies as well as small-molecule drugs that target the genomic basis of a disease. A speedier process for approval of these solutions, as well as other innovations in disease prevention and treatment, is meant to improve the quality and speed of the healthcare process, syncing its pace to that of technological progress.
Britain’s leading pharmaceutical and bio-industry association warned Westminster that a Brexit deal on medicines is vital. The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry and BioIndustry Association UK wrote in a joint statement that a “no deal Brexit would significantly damage public health and the UK life sciences sector and that this must be avoided at all costs”. Among the main concerns are the impact on public safety of removing certain legal obligations under the EU Falsified Medicines Directive. The association is also worried about the diminishing incentives linked to research and development of orphan medicines. Both associations agreed that a strong cooperation with the EU regarding the regulatory framework for medicines would be needed after Brexit takes effect, in order to ensure that patients both in the UK and in the EU are able to access safe and effective treatments. |
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Business Environment
According to a recent report published by Coherent Market Insights, medical cannabis market is set to triple by 2020. The global medical cannabis market is valued at around 5 billion dollars and could be at over 17 billion dollars in less than three years. Furthermore, in 2025 it could reach 20 billion dollars. The report explains this boost by the increased number of clinical trials and approvals for medical cannabis products that address diseases such as epilepsy and different cancers.
US FDA approved the first new flu medicine in almost 20 years. Xofluza is an oral, single-dose antiviral with a novel proposed mechanism of action and was developed through a cooperation of a Japanese and a Swiss company . It was approved on the American market to was approved to “treat acute uncomplicated influenza, a contagious respiratory illness caused by influenza viruses, in patients 12 years of age and older who have had symptoms for no more than two days”, FDA announced. Prior to the approval, FDA granted Xofluza a priority review acknowledging that the treatment had the potential to significantly improve the safety or effectiveness of treating, diagnosing or preventing a serious condition. Therefore, the process of the approval was speeded up.
The European Pharmaceutical Review reported that most pharmaceutical companies outsource to smaller firms. As the process of developing a new treatment is complex and expensive, characterized by low success rates, many companies rely on outsourcing to save time, effort and money. They turn to companies that serve this purpose, having their own infrastructure and sometimes even using new technologies (which for them are cheaper) and of course, skilled but less expensive personnel. North America is currently leading the outsourcing market, followed by Europe and the Asia Pacific region. The report concludes the outsourcing market is likely to grow in the future.
WHO reported that based on an experiment started in 2016 in Ireland, social media is an effective platform to be used for informing people on vaccination and increasing the currently low levels. The WHO applauds the partnership between a health specialist and a social media marketer, considering it is through this partnership that the influenza vaccination rate doubled in two years in Ireland. It is the first time social media is advertised as a useful tool for health related issues management, by the WHO. |
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Immediate Health Threats & Their Responses
A new study shows that the availability of helicopter ambulance service varies widely across different European countries. The researchers of Birmingham’s Center for Injury Sciences write in Emergency Medicine Journal that such evidence would lead to greater inequity in access to healthcare. While not much debated, the study points to existing national capabilities limitations but also to potential emerging infrastructure needs in Europe.
According to a recently released study issued by European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, drug resistant superbugs kill about 33.000 people in Europe annually. Italy and Greece are most affected. The research concluded that the situation had worsened since 2007. The study also points out that the effect of the highlighted pathogens is similar to HIV, flu and tuberculosis combined. Some bugs have proven to be resistant to even the most powerful, last-resort antibiotics. Around 70% of infection causing bacteria are already resistant to at least one of the antibiotics commonly used to treat them. Therefore, superbugs are one of the biggest threats medicine is facing today.
World Health Organization released a report where it estimated that “around 93% of the world’s children under the age of 15 years ( almost billion children) breathe air that is dangerously polluted”. They are exposed to both ambiental pollution and household pollution (pollution in the home environment), especially in large parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America. In 2016 alone, it is estimated that about 600,000 children died from acute lower respiratory infections caused by polluted air. Pollution causes symptoms ranging from ear infections, to obesity and even cancer. The WHO also finds that “Air pollution affects neurodevelopment, leading to lower cognitive test outcomes, negatively affecting mental and motor development.” During the last few years, preoccupation on limiting pollution triggered policies regarding the energy sector and in some countries, the machine building industries as well as the transportation sectors. This trend is likely to continue, as countries take steps to limit pollution. |
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Research Ideas & Innovation Technology
Antibody engineer Joost Kolkman from Janssen Infectious Diseases in Beerse, Belgium and his colleagues determined an unusual class of antibodies made by llamas and their camel cousins that might serve as a weapon against flu – and in particular to offer protection against influenza A and B viruses and even avian-borne strains like H1N1. The report on how these antibodies may be transferred into a vaccine is published in Science Magazine. More, considering the experiment of administering the substance intranasally to mice, the vaccine may be easily delivered as an anti-flu nasal spray, which could be given a few times during the patient lifetime.
Siemens Healthineers partnered with Israeli start-up Healthy.io and developed an app that allows patients to test their urine at home. Patients urinate on a dipstick and then scan it using their smartphone camera, which, in turn uses computer vision and machine learning to ensure the results can be read. This is the latest partnership announcement between a medtech firm and a tech company – and it is part of a developing trend: a number of tech companies including Apple, Samsung Electronics or Google have announced that they’re working on health-related applications for wearable devices and smartphones. Such devices don’t need to go through FDA necessarily to be marketable – it’s patients’ trust that they first need to gain.
At the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, the scientists team from Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany presented the results of their experiment which consisting of “reprogramming” abundant nonneuronal cells called astrocytes into neurons in the brains of living mice. The discussions with other specialists, them too already working on how to better address brain degenerative diseases like Alzheimer or Parkinson, evolved around the idea of astrocytes’ (mature cells) potential reprogramming – to replace the currently used alternatives: transplanting stem cells into the damaged brain or the spinal cord. More on the matter can be read here.
The European Union announced at the end of October that the first €132 million of its quantum flagship initiative will be split between 20 continent-wide consortia over the next 3 years and will be spent on research meant to lead to the development of new kinds of quantum sensors, communications, and computers. Funding should be split 50-50 between the European Commission and member states. But, unlike other similar initiatives, the member state funding would not end up in a central pot. Instead, these funds are earmarked for national programs that merely share the aims of the quantum flagship. The U.S. and China have already started investing into quantum technology research. While quantum mechanics relate to the computer world, there is also evidence that the field may intersect with that of the health sector. One of the founders of quantum mechanics, Erwin Schrödinger was the first to put forward the idea of quantum mechanics playing a role in biology, considering what we know about heredity. This is to point out that while Europe seems to get late in the game and only now invest in a field that others have already progressed, this is a field that deserves our attention, considering the impact it may have on the health sector.
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