EMA holds workshop for safe geriatric medicines
Thursday 22 March 2012
On 22-23 March, Alex Teligadas (Communications Officer, Alzheimer Europe) attended a European Medicines Agency (EMA) workshop entitled "Ensuring safe and effective medicines for an ageing population" in London. Action in the geriatric field is an EMA priority, as people aged 80 and over constitute the fastest-growing segment of the total population. Ms Dagmar Roth-Behrendt, MEP (Germany) and Vice-Chairperson of the European Alzheimer’s Alliance was a keynote speaker at this workshop.
The workshop attracted more than 130 delegates and had four main objectives:
- present and discuss the EMA geriatric medicines strategy and related activities
- identify gaps in the strategy and establish priorities for action
- provide an opportunity to highlight synergy areas between stakeholders
- offer a sounding board for the actions undertaken by and expected from EMA and its committees by stakeholders.
There were numerous presentations which dealt with the challenges of designing, prescribing and evaluating medicines for elderly people. These challenges include:
- the current paucity of clinical trials involving elderly people
- the additional resources needed to enrol and retain older people in clinical trials
- comorbidity and frailty
- medication formulation and packaging.
Participants included experts and stakeholders in the regulatory field, EU public bodies, academic researchers, patient representatives, health care professionals and pharmaceutical industry representatives. A detailed programme of the event can be seen at: