Leaders in Europe are diving into the details of how to give patients access to cell and gene therapies – and that means talking about how to finance them and ensure that single-dose treatments deliver long-term value.
“We are encouraged by European governments who send a strong signal of how innovative and collaborative thinking can make gene therapy a reality for patients,” Diego Sacristan, CSL Behring’s Senior Vice President International recently said in Parliament Magazine. Significant access milestones have recently been achieved in European Union countries, including Germany, Spain, Denmark and Austria, where patients with a rare bleeding disorder can now benefit from gene therapy, he said in the article sponsored by CSL Behring. Early and frequent discussions with governments and payers is essential when building this new framework, Sacristan said.
Europe “should be a global lighthouse” for both developing these innovative therapies and for getting them to patients, said Stine Bosse, a member of the European Parliament quoted in the article who is also vice chair of the Health Committee. “The new EU Life Sciences Strategy and the Biotech Act must ensure that new, innovative therapies will be both developed, trialed and launched here in Europe,” Bosse said.
Read the full article: The EU's Role in Advancing Access to Gene Therapy for Patients
The article includes comments from other experts, including Paolo Morgese, the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine’s Vice President of Public Affairs for Europe and Wolfgang Miesbach, Professor of Medicine at Frankfurt University Hospital, Germany. "There are promising examples of innovative payment arrangements in both the U.S. and Europe that we can all build upon to improve access for patients," he said.
