Biomed Alliance welcomes health panel
The Alliance for Biomedical Research in Europe (Biomed Alliance) has welcomed the EU’s decision to create a Strategic Scientific Panel for Health within Horizon 2020, describing it as a major step towards more targeted investment in health innovation in Europe.
The panel was voted in by the European Parliament in Strasbourg after lengthy negotiations on the overall Horizon 2020 package. Maria da Graça Carvalho MEP, a rapporteur of Horizon 2020 legislation, said: “I am delighted that I played a role in ensuring that Europe’s leading health and scientific experts have been granted an official role in shaping the agenda of future health research. The Scientific Panel for Health, which was advocated by the Biomed Alliance. is a major step towards more targeted health research and innovation in Europe.”
Emphasising the need to better align health research and policy in order to avoid fragmentation, as well as boost innovation and address unmet medical needs, Biomed Alliance members embarked on an advocacy campaign for the creation of the Scientific Panel. The Alliance worked with a coalition of health research and policy experts, former national politicians, patient advocates and leaders from the biomedical industry.
The Strategic Scientific Panel for Health will be tasked with a clear mission of orientating and promoting the co-ordination of health research and innovation across Horizon 2020. Their role will include helping to eliminate duplication in research efforts whilst also sharing discoveries across Europe, thereby further promoting collaboration and patient access to new innovations faster. The efforts form part of a broader vision for the new framework programme, which seeks to transform Europe into a science and research hub that can compete on the global stage and create jobs and economic growth.
