Prof. Francesco De Lorenzo, the ECPC President, participated in the WIN 2016 Symposium, representing European patients’ voice as an invited speaker. The conference took place on June 27 – 28 in Paris and aimed at elaborating the overarching theme “Innovative Approaches to Improve Cancer Patient Outcomes” in six expanded plenary sessions, divided over the two days of the meeting.
The major sessions tackled following topics:
- New tools for early diagnosis, selecting therapies and monitoring;
- Innovative clinical trials to substantially improve outcome;
- Relevant models and critical preclinical data before moving to the clinic;
- Expediting precision cancer medicine;
- Translation of big data into clinical opportunities
Professor Francesco De Lorenzo opened first session by advocating for ‘No innovation about us without us’ on behalf of ECPC Community. The ECPC President stressed that in the past 20 years, innovation in cancer dramatically changed the patients’ pathway by providing new answers to cancer patients, thanks to a better understanding of cancer biology. He emphasized, however, that it is necessary to better integrate patients in all steps of innovation to ensure that new treatments are truly meaningful for them. Innovation can give much more if patients are protagonists of the process rather than just subjects. Finally, De Lorenzo remarked that patients should be involved in relevant European and national health policies on the provision, organisation and resourcing of care, and the development and introduction of innovative therapies (i.e. research, regulation, assessment and reimbursement/pricing).
For more insights, we invite you to download prof. De Lorenzo’s full presentation here.
To find out more regarding the WIM 2016 Symposium, please go to: http://www.winsymposium.org.