Better health through biomedicine

27.09.2010 15:03

OECD Workshop "Better Health through Biomedicine - Innovative Governance"

A workshop entitled "Better Health through Biomedicine – Innovative Governance," sponsored by the German Federal Ministry of Health and the Canadian government, began today in Berlin. Seventy participants from OECD member states are discussing how to improve access to biomedical innovations to ensure high-quality and affordable healthcare in the long term. Using examples such as genetic diagnostics, cardiac stem cell therapy, and personalized medicine, the workshop examines innovations in OECD member countries.

The State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Health, Stefan Kapferer, emphasized in his opening remarks
Speaking about the importance of biomedicine: „The future of the healthcare system in Germany will depend crucially on a successful balance between innovation and cost control. To achieve this, it is necessary to bring the biomedical discoveries of the recent past to patients even faster, while maintaining the necessary standards for safety, quality, and efficacy. Ways to achieve this must be sought jointly with the leading industrialized nations, because their healthcare systems face the same challenge: to make ever newer, more effective, and less side-effect-prone treatment methods available, while simultaneously keeping healthcare costs within a sustainable range.“

There is great international interest in the two-day workshop "Better Health through Biomedicine – Innovative Governance." Among others, Margarete Hamburg, head of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Alain Pompidou, president of the French Académie des Technologies, and Sir Michael Rawlins, head of the UK's National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), will contribute keynote addresses to the workshop's success. Together, they aim to explore new strategies to accelerate the development of new diagnostic and therapeutic procedures from concept to patient care.

The OECD considers the health sector to be one of the most important drivers of innovation in industrialized nations. This sector therefore plays a prominent role in the OECD's Innovation Strategy published in 2010.