'Clearing the pathway': How can the EU make its pharmaceutical sector more innovative?

euronews (in English)

Smart Health asks the Director General at the European Medicines Agency about what steps Europe can take to improve innovation in the pharmaceutical sector.

Transcript

00:00 What challenges are facing the European Union as it endeavours to make its pharmaceutical

00:07 sector more innovative? According to Emma Cook, the Director General of the European

00:12 Medicines Agency, the situation is rather complicated.

00:19 We need to make sure that we're transparent and accessible, especially for small and medium

00:28 sized enterprises, because small and medium sized enterprises are our superheroes. 20%

00:34 of the products that we authorise in Europe are developed by small and medium sized enterprises.

00:40 And they don't have the same resources to deal with the complexity of some of the regulatory

00:47 processes that are established by legislation here. So we have to think about simplification,

00:53 we have to think about signposting, we have to think about is it meaningful, does it make

00:58 sense, is it accessible. So we're trying to put in tools that help to make the pathways

01:05 clearer and also to make sure that innovators can navigate those pathways with our help.

01:13 The other challenge we have is expertise, because if we think about the medicines of

01:22 the future, the lines between medicines and technologies and medical devices are blurring

01:29 all the time. So we need to make sure that we have a combination of scientific skills,

01:36 technological skills, and we're not just thinking the way we thought 30 years ago.

01:42 [Music]

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