The director of the association participated in the 4th online meeting "En Voz rara" organised by the Mehuer Foundation in collaboration with Sanofi to talk about "Milestones and challenges of the Pharmaceutical Industry with Orphan Drugs".
The event was presented and moderated by Manuel Pérez Fernández, President of the Mehuer Foundation and the College of Pharmacists of Seville, and was also attended by Arantxa Catalán, Head of Public Affairs at Sanofi Spain, and Iciar Sanz, Director of International Affairs at Farmaindustria.
The debate focused on two topics: the milestones and challenges for the Pharmaceutical Industry in the field of Orphan Medicinal Products and the analysis of the planned changes in the European regulation of treatments for rare diseases.
Among the challenges Marian outlined in her speech were: maintaining incentives for the development of orphan drugs, guaranteeing the availability and accessibility of medicines for all European patients in all Member States, ensuring that scientific and technological advances are fully exploited, and avoiding inefficient and burdensome procedures: a stable and predictable regulatory environment and framework that allows for a reduction of access times to treatments.
As a country, he insisted on the urgent need to ensure equity in diagnosis and access to treatment for all patients regardless of where they live, to develop a specific, agile and clear process for the evaluation of treatments, to reduce the timeframes for funding, to have greater certainty and consensus in the evaluations to improve the situation by giving a voice to patients and clinicians.
