The world is facing an ever more troubling crisis regarding medical access and innovation. Millions of patients worldwide do not have access to existing lifesaving treatments due to affordability problems, and many do not receive adequate treatment because their conditions are systematically neglected under the current innovation ecosystem. The World Health Organisation´s Consultative Expert Working Group (CEWG) on Research and Development: Financing and Coordination, has developed extensive recommendations on how to tackle this crisis.

The discussion was taken up favorably by member states at last year’s and this year’s World Health Assembly. There is a growing consensus that any solution to the access and innovation crisis will be based on the principle of de-linkage. This concept refers to financing mechanisms that untie the costs of research and development, from the cost of the medical end product.

So far, academia has been slow in taking up these major developments in the political sphere, and in grasping the potential benefits that these might entail for public research institutions. The goal of this session is to foster the discussion between different stakeholders on the potential benefits of a de-linked medical research and development system.

Panelists: David Hammerstein (Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue), Prof. Albrecht Jahn (Universität Heidelberg), Spring Gombe, Sascha Marschang (European Public Health Alliance)

Moderation: Rainer Tan (UAEM)

Please RSVP via registration@uaem-europe.org