EFPIA Patient Think Tank

The European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) represents the biopharmaceutical industry operating in Europe. Through its direct membership of 37 national associations, 38 leading pharmaceutical companies and a growing number of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), EFPIA’s mission is to create a collaborative environment that enables our members to innovate, discover, develop and deliver new therapies and vaccines for people across Europe, as well as contribute to the European economy.

The EFPIA Patient Think Tank is a forum for an open exchange of ideas, information and perspectives between Patient Organisations and industry on topical issues impacting on patients. 

Transparency and legal requirements can make the relationship between industry and patient organisations difficult to navigate for both parties. Recognising the wealth of knowledge and experience in the group, the Think Tank has also started to co-create guidance about how industry and patient organisations can work better together preserving the highest ethical and transparency standards.

As a first step, the group has developed a white paper to underline the rationale for interactions between the pharmaceutical industry and Patient Organisations, suggest the principles on which these interactions should be based, outline the points of collaboration through the life cycle of a medicine, discuss some of the challenges and potential solutions to interact as well as providing a list of resources to support meaningful/appropriate collaboration.

Building on this, they also developed a set of principles about remuneration of patients and patient experts and are looking to continue this work, to advance patient engagement by making it easier to navigate for both industry and patient organisations.

Owen Miller represents Alzheimer Europe at the EFPIA Patient Think Tank meetings.

https://www.efpia.eu/relationships-code/patient-organisations/efpia-patient-think-tank/