What is the Human Toxome Project? Its a wide-reaching programme aimed at helping us to reconsider how hazard/risk assessment has been performed over the last 50 years on marketed substances like chemicals, cosmetic products, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, biocides and feedstuffs.
I co-chaired a session at the Commissions Innovation in Healthcare conference recently, and learned a very interesting lesson there that is overwhelmingly obvious, yet overlooked in our continuing mission to become one Europe.
In the last 30 years, biotechnology has become a major source of innovation in combating untreated diseases and improving current treatments. A better understanding of the human genome rests at the heart of this incredible technological progress. With the dawn of personal medicine, we are also witnessing the dawn of a new era in medicine.
The increase in lifestyle and ageing-associated diseases that has paralleled a rise in drug development costs along with the financial constraints of the global economy is putting enormous pressure on the sustainability of healthcare systems.
If Jane Austen was writing in the early 21st century in Europe, she could well have begun one of her novels with: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a country in possession of a biotech sector, must be in want of a pharma company.
The societal and economic challenges facing Europe and the world are complex and interconnected. The Bioeconomy Strategy and Action Plan “Innovating for Sustainable Growth: a Bioeconomy for Europe”, which was adopted by the European Commission on 13 February 2012, offers a unique approach to addressing these challenges in a comprehensive way.
In February, I heard of a slightly mad and very worrying trend in decisions handed down by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) with regard to IP issues handed up from the national level for clarification. IP is not very exciting to start with, but the more you understand about the situation developing, the more you see Europe backing itself into a corner about something that could have major ramifications for commercialisation of technologies.
The extensive coverage of the worldwide financial crises has masked a looming crisis in healthcare. In addition to the financial constraints affecting every part of society, healthcare also faces an innovation crisis.