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During the last six months of 2015, the Alliance played a key role in helping to shape the landmark Luxembourg Presidency Council Conclusions on personalised medicine, after months of working hand-in-hand with the Grand Duchy, and specifically the department run by Health Minister Lydia Mutsch.

Part of the rotating presidency’s job is to prepare Council Conclusions on various topics to be delivered at the end of its term in office – in Luxembourg’s case, December. Typically, a Council Conclusion invites member states and/or another EU institution (for example, the Commission) to take action on a specific topic.

These conclusions are often adopted in areas where the EU has the competency to support, coordinate and supplement, for example in the arena of health, and those on personalised medicine came on the back of a high-level conference held in July 2015 and several subsequent discussions.

The conference, entitled ‘Making Access to Personalised Medicine a Reality for Patients’, addressed obstacles to the integration of personalised medicine into EU health-care systems, identified best practices and their added value and outlined the potential benefits of personalised medicine for public health and its impact on policy-making in the EU.

The Alliance played a major part in the Luxembourg Presidency’s summer conference, has given coordinated input into many policy matters ranging from data protection, to IVD and clinical trial regulations.

Reacting to the Council Conclusions will play a significant role in EAPM’s 5-6 April conference, and EAPM will examine the Duchy’s recommendations as part of the ‘Taking Stock’ topic base.

The plenaries will cover the topic of ‘Taking Stock’ as seen from several perspectives: The Member States’, the European Commission’s, and the Stakeholders’.
Also being discussed in plenary will be: ‘HTA – Payer - Integration’; ‘Value of Innovation, Access and Incentives’, and; ‘Genetic Mapping & Ethics’.

The conference will also feature roundtables on ‘New models for clinical trials’, ‘The Data Protection Regulation and Big Data generally’; ‘The promotion of cross-disciplinary interaction’, as well as a ‘Diseases Focus’ session.