December 21, 2016

IPOPI attends Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Meeting

The 3rd APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) Blood Supply Chain Policy Forum was held in Hanoi, Vietnam, on 8-9 December 2016. IPOPI was delighted to be invited to partake into this important event.

Mr Bruce Lim, IPOPI’s Board Member (Malaysia), was invited to be a speaker at the meeting. Mr Lim provided a presentation on “Addressing PID Patients Needs in the APEC Region”. In his talk, Mr Lim provided attendees with an overview of IPOPI’s activities, primary immunodeficiencies as a key subgroup of rare diseases and priorities facing PID patients in the Asia Pacific region.
He specifically highlighted that whilst Asia represents close to 60% of the world population, it only holds about 20% of the plasma derived medicinal products world market. Many countries do not include IG therapies in the list of reimbursed drugs and the access to IG therapies is uneven throughout the region. In particular SCIG therapies are not available in most countries despite the fact patients living in remote areas could really benefit from home treatment. He also pointed out that the level of under-diagnosis in the region is significant and that adult care remains very poor.

Mr Lim referred to the PLUS Consensus Statements which highlight the need to put the patients’ interest at the centre of all policy and regulatory discussions that may impact their access to PDMPs and provide useful pointers as to what is needed with regards to blood and plasma management. Mr Lim stressed the urgent need to improve GMP practises and implement measures to avoid the wastage of plasma recovered from whole blood. He also emphasised that it is of utmost importance to provide an adequate supply of PDMPs from recovered and source plasma to meet patient needs on a global level. Lastly Mr Lim went over the PID Principles of Care, a key publication which was led by IPOPI in collaboration with a panel of international experts in the field and which lays out the fundamental principles of care that should be met in any given country to attain gold standard care for PIDs.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is a regional economic forum established in 1989 to leverage the growing interdependence of the Asia-Pacific. APEC’s 21 members aim to create greater prosperity for the people of the region by promoting balanced, inclusive, sustainable, innovative and secure growth and by accelerating regional economic integration. Life sciences innovation is critical to growth and socio-economic development as healthy people produce healthy economies. Established by APEC Leaders in 2002, the Life Sciences Innovation Forum (LSIF) has since grown to become APEC’s leading initiative on health and health sciences innovation. It is a tripartite forum that engages representatives from the highest levels of government, industry and academia to create the right policy environment for life sciences innovation.
In 2015, LSIF endorsed the APEC Blood Supply Chain 2020 Roadmap and the establishment of the APEC Blood Supply Chain Partnership Training Network (PTN) to support the Roadmap’s implementation. It is within this context that the APEC Blood Supply Chain Policy Forum meetings are organised. For more information on APEC’s activities including the APEC Blood Supply Chain 2020 Roadmap please visit: http://www.apec.org/Groups/Committee-on-Trade-and-Investment/Life-Sciences-Innovation-Forum.aspx

IPOPI is thankful to APEC for including the PID patients community in these important discussions. IPOPI is committed to remaining engaged in future APEC activities on the topic of blood and plasma derived medicinal products to ensure the PID patients community’s viewpoints continue to be taken into consideration.