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An interesting article in the latest issue of Clinica.  David Nicolson, the CEO of the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) speaking at the Innovation Expo meeting stressed the importance of investing in innovation for long-term benefits and warned the NHS against isolating itself and becoming risk-averse.Clearly the what Eucomed has been alerting policy makers to […]

A crowded room at the offices of the European Policy Center yesterday afternoon. The topic of the day is “The future of medical devices in Europe”. The distinguished panel includes Josée Hansen, Pharm. D, project leader, Priority Medical Devices/ EHT, WHO-Geneva . Ms Hansen elaborated on the project’s approach, scope and objectives. In a nutshell, […]

Warm summer sunshine bathed the triumphal arch of the Parc du Cinquantenaire as colleague John Brennan and I walked down the tree-lined Avenue de  Tervuren to attend sister organisation COCIR’s 50th birthday party. Highlight of a wonderfully sociable evening amongst a veritable “who’s who” of the medical technology industry in Brussels was an impassioned speech […]

On Thursday 11 June, I attended, as part of the EULAR conference in Copenhagen – Europe’s largest conference on Rheumatology – the session “Structure modification in osteoarthritis: Time to update the guidelines”. What became really apparent was that rheumatologists from Europe and North-America are seriously concerned about the exponentially increasing prevalence and incidence of osteoarthritis […]

Is innovation still affordable with increasingly strained healthcare budgets? How can medical innovations continued to be financed? Panelist of the round table of distinguished speakers Member of the European Parliament Jorgo Chatzimarkakis made a statement which nicely complements the study released by AdvaMed only 2 days ago. He said that innovation does not increase costs […]

An exclusive roundtable hosted by Johnson & Johnson during this year’s Hauptstadtkongress debated the question whether the current healthcare system in Germany should compromise between the need to standardize treatments due to scarce resources and increasingly informed patients demanding the best treatment possible. Although panelists agreed that Germany may be leading in terms of standards […]

Listening to a distinguished panel of experts chaired by Bernard Merkel of DG Sanco I get the impression that things are moving to raise the level of patient safety. I was interested to learn that DG Sanco has commissioned a study to rate Member States in their efforts to combat patient safety. This “black list” […]

The sweltering heat and fever pitch of the football supporters contrasts starkly with the measured debate at the 2009 International Medical Device Industry Compliance, Regulatory and Intellectual Property Conference here in Rome. The Champions League final sees football shirted supporters rubbing shoulders with suited captains of industry in an unlikely melange. One item of news […]

Sitting in the crowded main conference hall of Berlin International Congress Center (ICC) on the opening day of Germany’s largest health policy conference, the so-called Hauptstadtkongress, I am keen to see where senior government officials see the healthcare system headed. The conference center breathes the atmosphere of a 70s sci-fi movie. I am listening to […]