Making our country a world leader in the life sciences sector, providing support to institutions to achieve leadership, but also promoting the quality and sustainability of the national healthcare system in a context of growing international competitiveness. This is the objective of the document ‘A national strategy for life sciences’, developed by Healthcare Policy and ‘Formiche’ and presented to the Chamber of Deputies with the support of the One Health parliamentary intergroup.
“This document – Alessandra Maria Claudia Micelli, director of Healthcare Policy and co-director of Formiche, who developed the text, explains to Adnkronos Salute on the sidelines of the meeting – aims to be a useful tool for the institutions that are already moving to position the Italy as a leading country”. And there are some fundamental elements to achieve this goal. “First of all, we need attention to research and development. In our country, only 4% of investments in R&D in the pharmaceutical industry are concentrated. A fact that gives food for thought”, adds Micelli. Furthermore, it is necessary to “help the industry with: certainty of laws, certain times, infrastructures, possibility of public-private partnership”.
At the same time, “attention to health data and, more generally, to digital health is decisive. But also to cooperation, not only public-private, but inter-institutional and between social partners”, highlights Micelli underlining that “the document proposes a series of analyzes of the brakes on development which are accompanied, however, by a series of indications for overcoming the barriers. This is because making a list of what is blocking us is not useful to anyone, instead we need practical actions to overcome them what we tried to do.”
The example of other countries
Similar programs have already been adopted by other countries such as the United States, Japan, Great Britain, France and Germany, for a sector revolutionized by extraordinary innovations that are redefining the global healthcare landscape. Italy, with an ecosystem of around 5,600 companies operating in the pharmaceutical, medical device and biotechnology sectors, and a production of around 250 billion euros, represents only 4% of the industry’s total investments in Research and Development pharmaceutical industry in Europe, compared to 20% in Germany, 14% in the United Kingdom and 11% in France. Furthermore, in terms of employment in the life sciences sector, it has remained almost stable over the last ten years (-0.4%), while other European countries have recorded significant increases: Spain +22%, Germany +12%, United Kingdom + 75%.
A group of experts from different areas of the life sciences sector participated in the development of the ‘strategy’ proposed by the document, coordinated by Alessandra Maria Claudia Micelli: Pierluigi Paracchi, CEO of Genenta Science (Nasdaq: Gnta) and moderator of the discussion table work for the internationalization of the biotechnology sector promoted by Maeci; Guido Rasi, consultant to the Minister of Health, professor of Microbiology at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, former executive director of the EMA; Giovanni Tria, president of the Enea Tech Biomedical Foundation, professor of Political Economy at the University of Tor Vergata and former Minister of Economy and Finance; Elisabetta Vitali, director of the Italian program of the Armenise Harvard Foundation.
Rasi: ‘we need more Europe but with less bureaucracy and greater agility’
“For research, in the field of life sciences and beyond, we need more Europe, but not the current one. It needs to be more coordinated, less bureaucratic and with rules that can also foresee the emergency, the investment for goals”. This was stated to Adnkronos Salute by Guido Rasi, consultant to the Minister of Health, professor of Microbiology at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, former executive director of the European Medicines Agency EMA.
“Europe – he added – pays for the great weakness of fragmentation. An example for everyone: during the pandemic we had 7-8 thousand clinical trials produced in Europe, all inconclusive, and only one done in America and successful. Why? Because they have a central authority which is the NIH which gives a protocol, it gives the adequate funds. In Europe we asked for money like EMA, they told us that a tender must be made in a pandemic. The problem is that there is no authority that can make emergency decisions, that can coordinate research. There is a bit of the idea of being very egalitarian, distributing things equally, which is a nice principle, but research is not. democratic, precise decisions and choices are needed”.
As regards our country and the document presented today, however, “promoting research and development in Italy in the field of life sciences is necessary. Until now little has been done – observes Rasi – but it is fundamental for competitiveness and for all implications and positive effects, not only in health. However, we need to work hard on the harmonization of the various legislations. Suffice it to say that we still have devices separated from the drug, the Apps – and therefore the digital part – not yet regulated, entangled in the approval processes. of drugs and devices. And again: a privacy law that does not respond to the reality and needs of health, in fact it is almost against health. And above all, the most important thing, there is a lack of a very well-defined public-private sphere. very clear and very simple.”
Tria: ‘funds for waiting lists? Have courage for spending review’
The resolution of the waiting list issue “is only partly a problem of funds. It is also an overall organizational problem. Obviously organization without resources is difficult, but resources without organization are not enough either”. On a practical level, however, “we need to look for resources elsewhere and move them. We need to have the courage to carry out a spending review”. Thus to Adnkronos Salute Giovanni Tria, president of the Enea Tech Biomedical Foundation, professor of Political Economy at the University of Tor Vergata and former Minister of Economy and Finance, regarding the approval in the Council of Ministers of the legislative decree and the anti-lists bill waiting.
“It is clear that more funds must go to healthcare and we need to move resources from other areas. The famous spending review does not just mean cutting, it means putting resources where there are priorities and cutting where priorities are not. the courage to do this. It is okay to always discuss the margins and what increase in expenses there must be in one place or another. However, there are ‘stocks’, that is, the mass of resources tied up by as many regulations as there may be magazines and, therefore, free up resources.
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