ABPI Conference 2015: Challenges and adopting new approaches

The future of R&D and how it can be adapted to improve the affordability of medicines was discussed at the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry’s (ABPI) annual conference in London yesterday.

Stuart Dollow, chief executive and founder of Vermillion Life Sciences (Nasdaq: VRML), tackled the conference theme of ‘The Affordability Conundrum’ by looking at opportunities within the sector. He said that while health care is improving overall, diseases such as cancer pose a threat to a population’s health in terms of morbidity and the affordability of care. In addition, conditions such as diabetes, and the cardiovascular risk associated with diabetes, can leave patients with chronic diseases. Antimicrobial resistance also poses a significant threat which needs to be addressed by the industry.

Dr Dollow said these challenges represent a ‘substantial demographic threat to our health that requires different approaches’, adding that these approaches will require new drugs that need to be adopted to be effective. New interventions that are developed have got to be tested and approved, and squaring that circle, in terms of the cost and the time frame, is ‘absolutely the fundamental problem’ he argued.