Previous Events

Today we use more medicines than ever before. The total worldwide market for pharmaceuticals is estimated at over $770 billion and this number is set to increase. Yet, while much focus has been placed on how to pay for the growth in demand for medicines, little attention has been paid to what may amount to an equally serious problem: ensuring their safety for patients.

Complex and interlinked supply chains now mean that the process of testing, manufacturing and marketing a new medicine spreads across different countries (for example from India to the US or the EU and vice versa). However, the globalisation of pharmaceutical markets and production has also increased the spread and prevalence of unsafe medicines, be they counterfeit or substandard. Counterfeit medicines are defined by the WHO as being "deliberately and fraudulently mislabelled with respect to identity and/or source". Substandard pharmaceuticals, on the other hand, are those which have been legitimately manufactured and, more often than not, approved for market and sale by a national or regional Drug Regulatory Authority (DRA) but which nevertheless do not meet the required quality or safety requirements.

The Stockholm Network has previously highlighted the serious effects of counterfeit medicines. We now aim to demonstrate how substandard drugs are a real and growing threat to public health in both the developed and developing world. As substandard drugs have often been approved by a regulator, we need to examine where existing drug regulations have gone wrong and how they can be changed. In this public workshop our expert panel will highlight the problem that substandard drugs present to public health and the Stockholm Network will present the findings of our new report into the issue.

Fundación FAES (Spain) hosted an event in collaboration with the Stockholm Network and the Henry Jackson Society to launch a new report called Europe, Proposals for Freedom.

Europe, Proposals for Freedom analyses the major challenges that Europe is facing and proposes a series of measures the Union can adopt to address them. European integration after World War II was a success. The desired goals were fully achieved: peace and reconciliation for the European nations; security to ward off the threat of a totalitarian and expansionist model; cooperation based on freedom to reach goals shared by democratic nations and a common ambition for prosperity based on a free market economy.

Today, the goals might seem different, but they are not. We are at peace, but peace is not guaranteed. We need to avoid temptations such as diluting the Nation States into a superstructure lacking legitimacy or creating state-like entities which would only revive old conflicts. Overcoming the economic crisis requires openness, competition and integration so that European economies are more dynamic and create employment and wealth.

Speakers at the event were:

• Jose Maria Aznar, former president of the Spanish Government and president of Fundación FAES;


• Lord David Trimble, Nobel Prize laureate and former first minister of Northern Ireland;


• Alberto Carnero, director of the International Area of FAES Foundation and author of the report.

The directors of the Stockholm Network and the Henry Jackson Society, Helen Disney and Alan Mendoza, opened and chaired the event.

Competitive Malta has recently joined the Stockholm Network. Helen Disney, chief executive and founder of the network, addressed the business breakfast organised by Competitive Malta in conjunction with the Malta Business Weekly.

Download "Stockholm Network think-tank CEO to address business leaders" in Malta Business Weekly

Download "Competitive Malta joins the Stockholm Network" in Malta Business Weekly

Nations across Europe and around the world all agree that healthcare technology assessment (HTA) is an important mechanism in the process of deciding which medicines should be paid for through public funding. But there is no consensus as to the appropriate tools for 21st century, patient-centric HTA.

Please join the Center for Medicine for in the Public Interest, the Stockholm Network and Timbro for a timely and lively debate on this important issue.

Speakers at the event were:

• Tobias Nilsson, political adviser to the Swedish Minister of Social affairs;
  
• Peter Pitts, Center for Medicine in the Public Interest;
  
• Richard Bergström, LIF;
  
• Dr Meir Pugatch, Stockholm Network and University of Haifa.

The Stockholm Network and the Joze Pucnik Institute joined forces to organise a workshop on “The Future of Healthcare Reform in Slovenia”.

The event took place in Ljubljana on 25th November and was attended by around 35 people from the media, the health policy institute, the HTA body, government officials, insurers, medical schools and industry.

Natasa Sustar, Director of the Joze Pucnik Institute, presented the event and was followed by Helen Disney, CEO of the Stockholm Network, who introduced the CEE Ahead Programme of the Stockholm Network. Both presentations were followed by a speech by the President of the Institute and MEP, Mijael Brejc, who spoke about Healthcare in the Slovenian and the European context and, finally, by Dr Meir Pugatch, Director of Research of the Stockholm Network, who gave his talk on “The Future of Healthcare Reform in Slovenia”. The presentations generated a lot of engagement from the audience during the Q&A session.

Background

Over the last 20 years Slovenia has undergone major economic and structural reforms, turning it into one of the most advanced systems in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region.

A number of interesting policy innovations have already attracted the attention of external observers, including the unique combination of mandatory universal insurance and voluntary complementary insurance that has been adopted. Slovenian citizens now enjoy significant freedom of choice as far as their health insurance is concerned.

On other fronts, there is still more that can be done. Patients can find it difficult to attain swift access to innovative health care technologies despite a rapid growth in R&D expenditure and it is still not easy to find user-friendly healthcare information.

Indeed there are still plenty of issues to debate. How can Slovenia make sure it builds on the policy reforms it has adopted? What can other CEE countries learn from the Slovenian experience with healthcare reform, and should follow the path of introducing a system which combines mandatory and voluntary insurances? Which other reforms could be introduced in Slovenia as well as in the CEE region as a whole, in order to improve the quality of healthcare? And, how can these policies be linked to strategic objectives at the pan-European level, such as the Lisbon Agenda goals, in which Slovenia recently played a key role, as part of its EU Presidency?

In Slovenian

Stockholm Network in Inštitut dr. Jožeta Pučnika sta združila moči pri obravnavi teh vprašanj in priredila delavnico Prihodnost zdravstvenih reform v Sloveniji.

Okrogla miza je potekala 25. novembra 2008 v Ljubljani. Razprave se je udeležilo 45 ljudi s področja medijev, vladnih služb, zavarovalništva, zdravstvenih inštitutov, šol in gospodarstva.

Direktorica Inštituta dr. Jožeta Pučnika, Nataša Šuštar, je predstavila dogodek in delovanje Inštituta, Helen Disney, direktorica Stockholm Network, pa je predstavila program CEE Ahead. Sledil je govor predsednika sveta Inštituta dr. Jožeta Pučnika, poslanca v Evropskem parlamentu, dr. Mihaela Brejca, ki je povedal nekaj besed o zdravstvu v slovenskem in evropskem kontekstu. Kot zadnji je svoj prispevek predstavil dr. Meir Pugatch, direktor Stockholm Network, ki govoril o »Prihodnosti zdravstvenih reform v Sloveniji«. Njegov prispevek je spodbudil precej odziva publike v zaključni razpravi.

Ozadje

V Sloveniji so bile v zadnjih 20 letih izvedene velike gospodarske in strukturne reforme, ki so jo spremenile v enega najnaprednejših sistemov v srednje- in vzhodnoevropski regiji.

Številne zanimive novosti so že pritegnile pozornost zunanjih opazovalcev, med drugim tudi edinstvena kombinacija splošnega obveznega in prostovoljnega dodatnega zavarovanja. Slovenski državljani danes uživajo precejšnjo svobodo izbire zdravstvenega zavarovanja.

Po drugi strani pa je mogoče storiti še več. Pacienti kljub nagli rasti porabe za raziskave in razvoj včasih nimajo hitrega dostopa do inovativnih zdravstvenih tehnologij. Prav tako ni enostavno najti uporabnikom prijaznih informacij o zdravstvenem sistemu.

Pravzaprav je še veliko vprašanj, o katerih bi bilo potrebno razpravljati. Kako lahko Slovenija nadgradi reforme, ki jih je sprejela? Česa se lahko iz slovenske izkušnje z reformo zdravstvenega sistema naučijo druge države srednje in vzhodne Evrope in ali naj ji sledijo z uvajanjem sistema kombinacije obveznega in prostovoljnega zavarovanja? Katere druge reforme bi lahko izpeljali v Sloveniji in v celotni srednje- in vzhodnoevropski regiji, da bi izboljšali kakovost zdravstva? In kako je mogoče takšno politiko povezati s strateškimi cilji na evropski ravni, kakršni so cilji programa lizbonske strategije, pri katerem je Slovenija v času svojega predsedovanja Evropski uniji igrala ključno vlogo?

Download Dr Meir Pugatch`s Presentation

John Major`s underpants. Brown as Stalin. Obama as Osama. These images, as much as anything, show how a politician`s career can be made, or broken, on the back of public perception. With the US elections almost upon us, there is unprecedented opportunity for the art of satire to shape public opinion.

Kevin `KAL` Kallaugher (celebrating 30 years as The Economist`s political cartoonist) and Henry Naylor (creator of TV`s `Headcases` and `Spitting Image` head writer) discussed cartooning, campaigning and chicanery and explore how art can be used to interest, excite and intrigue any audience.

This was followed by a hands-on, interactive cartooning conducted by KAL, where members of the audience saw first hand the process of political cartooning.

The discussion was chaired by Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Channel 4 News.

• Campaign cartooning video
  

• Setting the stage: Evidence-based policy in IPRs – can policy meet practice? – Dr Meir P. Pugatch, Senior Lecturer, University of Haifa, and Director of Research, Stockholm Network

• Recent lessons from the statistical analysis of IPRs on innovation and economic growth at the macro and micro economic levels – Dr Dominique Guellec, Principal Administrator, Economic Analysis and Statistics Division, Directorate of Science, Technology and Industry (DSTI), OECD

• Globalisation, intellectual property and value creation - new frontiers for research – Douglas Lippoldt, Head of Division (acting), Development Division, Trade and Agriculture Directorate, OECD

• Using IPRs for voluntary, market-driven collaborations in the biotechnology field – theory and practice – Dr Christina Sampogna, Administrator, Biotechnology Division, DSTI, OECD

Moderator: Dr Iain Gillespie, Head, Biotechnology Division, OECD

Speakers include at the event were:

• Mario Cervantes, principal administrator of Innovation and Technology Policy at the OECD;


• Denis Dambois, administrator of the Public Procurement and Intellectual Property Unit at DG Trade of the European Commission;


• Dr Yoav Shechter, external affairs director of MSD Israel;

Debate on climate change has now shifted decisively from science to policy and this has generated a new set of questions and challenges. The Stockholm Network’s Carbon Scenarios present some answers.

In its three alternative futures, based on different post-2012 policies, the Stockholm Network presents clear, synthesised data on the climatic, economic, technological, political and social consequences of different policy options within a post-2012 framework.

Speakers at the event were:

• Paul Domjan, energy fellow of the Stockholm Network;
  
• Mark Lynas, author of Six Degrees and environmental campaigner;
  
• Hardin Tibbs, associate fellow at the Saïd Business School, Oxford University;
  
• Dr James Keirstead, research associate of the BP Urban Energy Systems Project, Centre for Energy Policy and Technology, Imperial College;
  
• Dr Swenja Surminski, policy advisor of Association of British Insurers;
  
• Oliver Tickell, Kyoto 2.
  

Europe`s interactions with the United States are at a crossroads. As the world watches and waits for the outcome of the 2008 Presidential Election, Europe looks to the future with many questions in mind. What are the potential impacts of each candidate’s approach to key areas such as trade, healthcare, security and energy? Would a Democratic President usher in a new era of pro-American feeling in Europe and elsewhere? And how will the US react to increased EU expansion and integration?

President Sarkozy, head of state in a country where America`s approval rating has dropped from 78% to only 37%, recently said he wanted to, "reconquer the heart of America in a lasting fashion". Meanwhile, in Britain, PM Gordon Brown has been quoted as saying, “I am absolutely confident that the special relationship between our two countries (UK and US) is strong and secure”. Will this enthusiasm bring about an unprecedented opportunity for better collaboration, co-operation and economic partnership?

Speakers at the event were:

• Herman De Croo, vice-president of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives;
  
• Peter Chase, Economic Minister-Counselor of the United States Mission to the EU;
  
• Helen Disney (chair), chief executive of the Stockholm Network.

The Stockholm Network is expanding rapidly. We now have over 135 member think tanks, ranging from Iceland to Azerbaijan, 17 permanent members of staff and our corporate members represent a range of industries including information technology, energy, pharmaceuticals, public relations, healthcare providers, business organisations and foundations.

The aim of the Sponsor Retreat is for us to build stronger relationships with our supporters and for them to get to know one another. The event will introduce new sponsors to the Network`s achievements to date and its plans for the future, as well as linking supporters with leading members of some of our think tanks and journalists from across Europe. It is also a chance for us to learn from you about how we can serve you better and which ideas you would like to receive a wider airing on the European stage.

We plan to inform and entertain you for the weekend in an atmosphere which combines intellectual stimulation and debate with relaxation and informal networking.

Speakers at the event included:

• Dr Jose Pinera, economist and former Secretary of Labor and Social Security for Chile;
  
• Trevor Kavanagh, associate editor of The Sun
  
• Christofer Fjellner, Moderate Party MEP.