I’ve just finished three fascinating days in Sharm El Sheikh at the Second Arab Conference on Food & Drugs. It was all business – and I didn’t even mind not getting any time to enjoy the Red Sea beaches.
Delegates from the Levant to Morocco had a lot to say and share. The fundamental take-away was that the Arab world is serious about coordinating their efforts in healthcare in general and in regulatory affairs specifically. “Convergence” and “harmonization” were the two key words of the event.
(The Middle East/North Africa Region – MENA – consists of 22 nations – but just 2% of global pharmaceutical sales.)
I was honored to present a plenary address on “Advancing Medicines Quality via New Strategies in Bioequivalence Regulations, Pharmacovigilance Practices, and the Identification and Management of Substandard Pharmaceutical Events,” as well as chair the event’s panel on pharmacovigilance, sharing the panel with governmental thought leaders such as Dr. Amina Tebba (Morocco), Dr. Amr Saad (Egypt), Dr. Emad Munsour (Qatar), and leading global policy experts Dr. Hisham Aljadhey (King Saud University), and Michael Deats (WHO). I also participated on a panel discussing the urgency of IP, as well as another on biosimilars – specifically calling out the vexing debate over nomenclature, physician notification, and therapeutic substitution.
With healthcare policy (as with life in general) – wherever you go, there you are.
Not surprisingly, much of the conversation centered on controlling costs – specifically pharmaceutical costs, without (alas) the appropriate balance of time spent on the pennywise/pound foolish consequences of many of these policies. The IP panel tried to add balance to that debate by strongly presenting the facts on the value of innovation.
Dr. Rasha Ziada (Egyptian Ministry of Health) made the important point that if a pricing authority doesn’t take outcomes into consideration, it will lead to overall price distortions. Amen. And Dr. Ola Ghaleb (Ministry of Health, United Arab Emirates), spoke about the UAE’s strategy of performance-based risk-sharing arrangements – but also how politics can derail any decision-making process. Her honesty was refreshing. Net/Net -- Outcomes is now capitalized and bolded in the international lexicon of healthcare policy.
While many of the presenters discussed the value of sharing pharmaceutical economic data across borders, there was not an equal counterbalancing discussion of the value of sharing clinical data for approvals and outcomes-based decision-making processes. But there was certainly an effort (both on many of the panels as well as during the breaks and after hours) to stress the urgency of this agenda. The good news is that many, many speakers (sometimes in passing and other times passionately) made the point that it mustn’t just be about “getting the lowest price,” but also appropriately pricing the most clinically effective treatments. Bravo.
Many of the delegates said (from the floor as well as in conversation) that the conference was useful – but that action is required. In short – talk is cheap. My feeling (speaking privately with senior government officials from many of these nations) is that there is serious momentum for change (and even reinvention). But only time will tell.
As Deming said, “Change is not required. Survival is not mandatory.”
Or as the Egyptian saying goes
كلنا فى نفس القارب
We are all in the same boat.
