Lawrenceville, NJ, USA—November 23, 2020—ISPOR—The Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research held its Virtual ISPOR Europe 2020 conference, “Improving Health: Establishing Incentives and Sharing Value,” on 16-19 November. ISPOR Europe is the leading European conference for health economics and outcomes research (HEOR). On-demand recordings of all conference sessions are available to registrants through 31 December 2020.
The first plenary session, “’New Deal’ for Healthcare Systems—Mission Inspirational, Impossible, or Inevitable?,” was held Monday, 16 November. The panel discussed the value of innovation in HEOR with moderator Paola Testori Coggi, formerly with the European Commission and Italian Medicines Agency, and panelists Natasha Azzopardi-Muscat, MD, PhD, World Health Organization Europe; Nathalie Moll, European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations; Fabio Pammolli, Politecnico di Milano; and Jack Scannell, PhD, JW Scannell Analytics Ltd and University of Edinburgh.
The second plenary session, “Patient and Public Involvement in Healthcare Decision Making: Are We Maximizing Opportunities?,” was held Tuesday, 17 November. This session examined the urgent need for a more holistic and meaningful approach to citizen involvement in healthcare decision making. Speakers included moderator Bettina Ryll, MD, PhD, Melanoma Patient Network Europe and panelists Nathalie Bere, MSc, European Medicines Agency; Yann Le Cam, MBA, EURORDIS; and Axel Mühlbacher, PhD, MBA, Hochschule Neubrandenburg.
The third plenary session, “Much Ado About Little: Dealing with Limited Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) Evidence for Early Health Technology Assessment (HTA) and Reimbursement Decisions,” was held Wednesday, 18 November. This session focused on the approval of innovative drugs with little or no RCT evidence. Speakers included moderator Mark Sculpher, PhD, University of York and panelists Sylwia Bujkiewicz, PhD, University of Leicester; Eva Susanne Dietrich, MD, Institute for Evidence-Based Positioning in the Healthcare Sector and University of Bonn, Pharmaceutical Institute; Stephen Palmer, PhD, University of York; and Uwe Siebert, MD, MPH, MSc, ScD, University for Health Sciences, Medical Informatics and Technology and Harvard Chan School of Public Health.
Three Spotlight Sessions were held. “Scientific Collaboration in the Face of a Pandemic,” featured moderator Ian Hudson, OBE, MBBS, MD with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and panelists Peter Marks, MD, PhD with the US Food and Drug Administration; Pierre Meulien, PhD with the Innovative Medicines Initiative; and Agnes Saint-Raymond, MD with the European Medicines Agency. “Is Credible, Robust Real-World Evidence Just a Myth?” included moderator Anja Schiel, PhD with the Norwegian Medicines Agency and panelists Nancy Dreyer, MPH, PhD with IQVIA; Robert Golub, MD with JAMA; and Xavier Kurz, MD, PhD with the European Medicines Agency. “Novel Methods for Modeling Treatment Sequencing” featured moderator Mark Sculpher, PhD with the University of York and panelists Maiwenn J Al, PhD with Erasmus University Rotterdam; Huajie Jin, MBBS, MSc with King’s College London; and James Robins, MD with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
ISPOR’s Women in HEOR initiative held a session, “Adapting to the ‘New Normal,’“ that featured a panel of accomplished women in the field discussing how HEOR professionals can manage their careers during the era of COVID-19. The session featured the initiative’s co-leads, Olivia Wu, PhD with the University of Glasgow who moderated and Julia F. Slejko, PhD with the University of Maryland who hosted. Panelists included Blythe Adamson, PhD, MPH with Flatiron Health; Nancy J. Devlin, PhD with the University of Melbourne and ISPOR Past President; Ebere Onukwugha, PhD with the University of Maryland and a member of the ISPOR Board of Directors, and Louise Timlin, MSc with Eli Lilly and Company.
ISPOR’s Value & Outcomes Spotlight, the Society’s magazine for the HEOR community, published a special supplement reporting on the conference—”Spotlight on Virtual ISPOR Europe 2020.” Reporting on the conference included each of the plenary sessions and a wide variety of topics, including the COVID-19 trial tracker, international reference pricing, the meaning and value of “cure”, SARS-CoV-2 contact tracing policies, histology independent therapies, efficiencies in HTA, COVID-19 and digital health, caregiver burden in HEOR, HTA during a pandemic, the SIR model for resource allocation, HTA for gene therapies, revising guidelines with new technologies, multinational HTA, the new GRACE model, and surrogate endpoints in regulatory ad HTA. The entire special supplement can be found here.
The Society’s 2020 Outstanding Regional Chapter Award honorees were also announced at the conference. The large-category honoree is the ISPOR Mexico Chapter. The medium-category honoree is the ISPOR Mongolia Chapter, and the small-category honoree is the ISPOR Austria Chapter.
“Virtual ISPOR Europe 2020 is the Society’s first fully virtual European conference,” stated ISPOR CEO and Executive Director Nancy S. Berg. “While the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a fully virtual event this year, we were so pleased to be able to offer more than 90 hours of innovative and topical educational programming to registrants from around the globe. ISPOR’s virtual conferences have been extremely successful and well received. In fact, when we are able to safely meet in person again, ISPOR plans to offer hybrid conferences that offer both in-person and virtual attendance options for registrants.”
On-demand recordings of all conference sessions are available for registrants to view at their leisure through 30 December 2020. Registration will remain open through that same time period. The ISPOR Short Course Program is now also being offered virtually with a wide variety of course topics. Short courses are posted here as they become available.
ISPOR is recognized globally as the leading professional society for health economics and outcomes research and its role in improving healthcare decisions. Virtual ISPOR Europe 2020 drew healthcare stakeholders with an interest in HEOR, including researchers and academicians, assessors and regulators, payers and policymakers, the life sciences industry, healthcare providers, and patient engagement organizations.
Additional information on the conference can be found at Conference Information.
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ISPOR, the professional society for health economics and outcomes research (HEOR), is an international, multistakeholder, nonprofit dedicated to advancing HEOR excellence to improve decision making for health globally. The Society is the leading source for scientific conferences, peer-reviewed and MEDLINE®-indexed publications, good practices guidance, education, collaboration, and tools/resources in the field.
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