AESGP Annual Meeting, Day 1: Evolving Self-Care In A Changing World
Executive Summary
"Evolving the self-care environment" is the theme of this year's AESGP Annual Meeting in Geneva, which was opened on 4 June by Sanofi's Alan Main and Martin Bangerter of the Swiss industry association, ASSGP.
Geneva is the location of the 55th Annual Meeting of the Association of the European Self-Medication Industry, the AESGP, which was opened by Martin Bangerter, director of the Swiss self-care industry association, ASSGP, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
Bangerter pointed to the significance of the opening event’s location – the Red Cross Museum – which he said testified that if human beings were “capable of the worst” then they were also “capable of the best.”
Setting the context for the meeting, Bangerter said it was vital to understand how the European self-care industry could “stay relevant and deliver value” in an “evolving self-care environment” – which is the topic of the year’s conference. The AESGP met every year as a “community” to work out answers to big questions such as these, he explained, in order to advance the industry and to “equip every European with the necessary skills to practice responsible self-care while offering effective self-care products.”
Bangerter was followed by Alan Main, executive vice-president of Sanofi Consumer Healthcare, who revealed that the World Self-Medication Industry – which he chairs – was poised to become the Global Self-Care Federation.
Explaining the reason behind the rebranding, Main said that the global self-care industry was experiencing “momentous change,” with a rapidly ageing population on the one hand, and on the other, a growing number of young people demanding affordability, accessibility and personalization when it came to self-care. “As an industry we can’t just keep pace,” Main warned, “we need to set the pace if we are to continue to be seen as relevant in the self-care environment.”
Main laid out three strategic “pillars” for the organisation going forward: trust, sustainable healthcare and health data.
“How do we build trust around issues that are really important to our key stakeholders?” he asked delegates, before turning to sustainable healthcare, wondering how industry could make sure that self-care was “seen as a universal building block in terms of sustainable health, not just for individuals but also for health systems around the world.”
Finally on health data, Main asked, “how do we actively engage in the debate around health data or the regulation of data and the use of data to support value-creation in self-care?” All three pillars would be explored further during the conference, he said, particularly during the ‘Future Trends In Self-Care’ panel, in which Main is presenting.
Look out for daily coverage of this year's AESGP Annual Meeting in HBW Insight.