The European Medicine Agency (EMA) has appointed two new patient organisation representatives to its management board.
Ilaria Passarani and Yann Le Cam will be responsible for ensuring the views and needs of patients are taken into account over the next three years.
Passarani currently serves as head of the food and health department at the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC), while Le Cam is chief executive and co-founder of the European Organisation for Rare Diseases (Eurordis).
Also joining the EMA’s board is Tonio Borg, who will represent the European Parliament alongside Björn Lemmer who has been reappointed to this role.
Borg is a former European commissioner for health, while Lemmer was a member of the National Commission on Prescription of Drugs in Germany.
Meanwhile, representing healthcare professionals’ organisations, Wolf-Dieter Ludwig has been re-appointed to the management board. Ludwig leads the haematology, oncology, tumor immunology and palliative care department at Helios Klinikum Berlin-Buch, a hospital in Germany.
In 2014 the EMA piloted a scheme to involve patients in the assessment of the benefits and risks of medicines in its scientific advisory committee.
The project invited patients to present their views on medicines under deliberation by the agency for which there was an unmet medical need and no clear decision by the regulatory committee.
While patients did not take part in any actual decision-making, the pilot brought a day-to-day understanding of the impact on quality of life that these medicines offered – an alternative viewpoint to those of other stakeholders.