EUPATI 2014: More actively engaged patients

By Randi Munch Krogsgaard, Biopeople

In February 2012 the European Patients’ Academy on Therapeutic Innovation” consortium (EUPATI) was established funded by the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI).The objective was to produce reliable and objective educational material to patients on the research and development process of medicines. The purpose of this is to introduce a paradigm shift towards having patients much more actively engaged in medicines R&D and make the European citizens better equipped when at navigating in the national health systems.

By involving and increasing the capacity of patients’ they may come effective advocates and advisors for patients, regulatory authorities and ethics committees regarding clinical trial design. This may change the general access to and the quality of treatments and lead to improved safety of medicines in general.

A public-private partnership led by patients

EUPATI is a highly collaborative public-private partnership project lead by patients consisting of 30 partners including patient advocacy groups, academic institutions, not-for-profit organizations and pharmaceutical companies.

The consortium aims to provide scientifically reliable, objective, and comprehensive information to patients and patient organization across Europe on the research and development process of medicines from early start to marketing of new medicines. This information is published in seven languages covering 12 countries.

Testing the Danish potential

Biopeople, Denmark’s Life Science Cluster is a partner in EUPATI consortium and plays a pivotal role in producing educational material to patients across Europe. The reason for the involvement of the Danish Life science Cluster is that Biopeople is experienced in facilitating public-private partnerships on a national and an international level and for Biopeople to bridge the European initiatives with Danish activities in the field of patient education.

One of the ways to test the level of interest in the EUPATI initiative, and the level of patient engagement in Denmark, was an afternoon meeting arranged by Biopeople and attended by broad group of stakeholders, i.e. patients, and patient organizations, health care staff and the industry. Based on that and other similar initiatives, which reveal the potential regarding a structured patient engagement activity in Denmark, EUPATI might consider making Denmark a platform for the outreach of the EUPATI programme.

For more information, please feel free to contact Niels Westergaard and Per Spindler, Biopeople through Biopeoples website website.

More information about EUPATI can be found here.