European Self-Care Industry Places Hope In New Commission

Opening the AESGP's Regulatory Conference in Brussels last night, MEP Christian-Silviu Busoi said healthcare was expected to be a priority for the new European Commission, which could have benefits for the region's self-care industry.

Healthcare could for the “first time” become a priority for the new European Commission, according to Member of the European Parliament and Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) vice-chair Cristian-Silviu Busoi.

Speaking at the opening of the Association of the European Self-Care Industry’s 2019 Regulatory Conference – entitled “A (re)new(ed) agenda for self-care products” – Busoi said the new Commission, to be led by president-elect Ursula von der Leyen, had a “very ambitious” plan to “fight against cancer, to promote digitization, address medicines shortages and combat antimicrobial resistance.”

Alongside implementing its significant budget allocated for health-related research – “more than €9bn ($9.8bn)” – to create new and effective medicinal treatments, Busoi suggested that the Commission should tap into the potential for self-care to prevent public health resources being “wasted”.

AESGP president Birgit Schuhbauer echoed Busoi’s optimism with regards to the new EC leadership, pointing out that von der Leyen was the EU institution’s first female president.

Von der Leyen had already “proven in meetings so far to be a great health advocate,” Schuhbauer revealed, adding that the AESGP looked forward to working with her “to help every European citizen to better self-care.”

The AESGP Regulatory Conference – which takes place every Autumn – returned to its “traditional” location of the European Parliament in Brussels after an absence last year, Schuhbauer noted. This was because the association was working on its new self-care “road map” which would take the association to 2024.

Creating the road map – details of which can be found on AESGP’s new website – had been an “exciting challenge,” Schuhbauer added, and would help to “move the self-care agenda forward” in the coming years.

Topics to be discussed at the Regulatory Conference include:

• The challenges of creating a new regulatory framework for food supplements, including implementation of the Novel Food Regulation and a report on the outcome of EC’s regulatory fitness and performance (REFIT) program]

• Discussion of the readiness – or unreadiness as the case may be – of the EU Medical Devices Regulation, set to come into force on 25 May, particularly its impact on substance-based, self-care medical devices

• The appropriateness of EU marketing authorization procedures for non-prescription medicines and herbal medicines

“Ultimately, the conference aims to deliver key, actionable insights into the very latest regulatory developments as well as provide an outlook to what a future regulatory landscape might look like,” AESGP insisted.

HBW Insight will be summarizing the key conference discussions in an article tomorrow, with more in-depth articles on topics of particular interest for HBW Insight readers to follow.