Innovation and health: the new dimension of care
Combining access to innovation with economic sustainability is the most pressing challenge facing healthcare systems worldwide. Research is yielding personalised medicines, smart medicines and drugs that are increasingly effective and safe, even in previously unexplored areas such as rare diseases and cancers. Sustainability, therefore, and innovation (including technological and service-related innovation) are the key words for guaranteeing fair and rapid access to care throughout the country, for providing an adequate response to the growing needs of an ageing population, and for safeguarding the right to health for future generations.
This is why we need increasingly flexible rules and assessments that can effectively link the clinical efficacy of innovation to the value it generates. A vision which, whilst taking into account the strict economic constraints, places the patient’s well-being at the centre.
It is against this backdrop that Sole 24 Ore Radiocor’s new ‘Innovation and Health’ Observatory has been launched: it will chronicle the rapid evolution of biopharmaceutical research and the production chain that has taken the lead in Europe, with a focus on personalised care and the role of artificial intelligence and big data. These are crucial issues that transcend national borders to become a European priority in the face of growing competition from giants such as the United States and China.
“We have enthusiastically embraced *Il Sole 24 Ore*’s idea of creating a joint platform to report on and discuss these two terms – ‘Innovation’ and ‘Health’ – which have been so overused that they risk losing their meaning,” emphasises Antonino Biroccio, General Manager of GSK Italia. And that would be a shame, because health is a right for all of us – a hope for a better life and a longer one – which can only be sustained by continuous, robust and responsible innovation.” It is no coincidence, therefore, that ‘innovation’ comes first in the Observatory’s title, because in this space we will be looking at what influences progress in health even beyond the biopharmaceutical sector. ““We are living through a period of great geopolitical and economic tensions,” continues Biroccio, “where bloody conflicts overshadow the seismic shifts triggered by the movement of tectonic plates known as AI, rare earths, energy and biopharmaceuticals – areas over which the United States and China are locked in a struggle.” In many of these sectors, the general manager of GSK Italia points out, “Europe and Italia are forced to play catch-up, but not in the biopharmaceuticals sector, where we rank among the world’s leaders and have the potential to do even better and counter the fierce competition between the two rivals in basic and clinical research, production and exports”.
“Innovating in healthcare in Italia means working on several aspects of our future,” concludes Biroccio, “namely: providing solutions for an ageing population under pressure from younger nations, contributing to the economy, appeal and competitiveness of Italia and Europe, and ensuring we do not find ourselves in a subordinate position in a future that will be shaped by the new balance of power between the United States and China.”
