20th November 2019, New Delhi: "Let us facilitate robust innovation ecosystem for defining standards for innovative technologies and create enabling environment for startups in healthcare to deliver affordable medical products including assistive technologies for all”, said Dr VK Paul, Member, NITI Aayog, as he chaired the session on Medical Technology Pathways for Innovative Medical Devices during the 2019 World Conference on Access to Medical Products Achieving the SDGs 2030.
Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist, World Health Organisation in her video address reiterated the need for regulatory systems strengthening, including participating in regulatory networks such as South East Asia Regulatory Network, for promoting access to medical products.
“WHO is committed to providing access to safe and affordable medical products to all,” she affirmed.
The conference provided a valuable platform for sharing experiences and advancing increased access to medical products globally. The key dignitaries unanimously agreed to the fact that this conference will spur innovative thinking around issues surrounding the provisioning of affordable and quality medical products as part of public health care delivery systems. The need is to leverage regulatory networks such as South East Asia Regulatory Network for strengthening regulatory systems in countries.
The session on Smart Safety Surveillance for strengthening Pharmacovigilance systems in countries highlighted the key learnings from the smart safety surveillance approach in countries. The success of India in the Rotavirus vaccine safety monitoring leading to the development and release of the White Paper on Rotavirus Vaccine Safety in India was highlighted during the session.
Sharing best practices and devising possible mechanisms for fostering collaboration between national government agencies and international players is imperative. The requirement is to delink the costs of research and development from the price of treatment; and to promote capacity building of local manufacturers for large scale production of quality drugs was highlighted during the session on Endgame for HIV, TB and Malaria. The key focus of the session was on the current landscape, policy initiatives, and innovative medical products for the elimination of HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in the national and global context.
During the session on re-purposing of Medicines for Reduced Approval Timeframe, Decreased Costs and Making Use of Existing Data, Advantages of Repositioned Drugs in Decreasing Development Costs and the fact that countries would benefit from a data-sharing platform on repurposing among countries for sharing and exchange of information was highlighted.
The main sessions covered on Day 2 were: Leveraging Regulatory Networks for Access to Quality, Safe and Affordable Medical Products Including Digital Tools for Strengthening Regulatory Systems; Smart Safety Surveillance for Strengthening Pharmaco-vigilance Systems- Progress Updates and Next Steps; Moving Towards Smarter Clinical Trials– Changing the Paradigm in the Context of Global and Multi Regional Clinical Trials; Medical Technology Pathways for Innovative Medical Devices; Medical Products for End game for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, Malaria; Global Partnerships for Drug Discovery, Innovation and Technology Development: Scaling up Adaptive Technology Solutions for Medical Products and Re-purposing of Medicines for Reduced Approval Timeframe, Decreased Costs and Making Use of Existing Data. More information on plenary sessions can be accessed here.
The key dignitaries present at the occasion were: Mr Jaideep Kumar Mishra, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Mr Arun Singhal, Special Secretary, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India; Dr Vaidya Rajesh Kotecha, Secretary, Ministry of AYUSH, Government of India; Dr Raman R Gangakhedkar, Scientist G and Head, Epidemiology and Communicable Diseases, Indian Council of Medical Research Dr Mandeep K Bhandari, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Dr Stephen Kennedy, Principal Investigator, PREVAIL: Joint US-Liberia Research Partnership, University of Liberia, Dr VG Somani, Drugs Controller General of India. and Dr KS Sachdeva, Deputy-Director General, Tuberculosis, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India.