Aida Asks: Interview with Sini Eskola

With pride, I publish the second episode of Aida Asks. I am curious what different stakeholders within Life Sciences and Healthcare have to say about their contribution to the future of health and the way we can foster innovation through regulation. For this second episode, I had a conversation with Sini Eskola from EFPIA - European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations .

Aida: Thank you for your time to have this conversation with me.

Changes our taking place in the Health ecosystem driving a large scale transformation which we call the Future of Heath. Within Deloitte we have identified a few trends driving this transformation. One of them is the move from care to health to well-being, the other one is the real empowerment of patients and the third is the need for faster development of personalized therapies that target diseases in a better way. ?

During Covid crises we experienced some acceleration towards this future of health. But we still need more transformation to happen and that transformation needs to occur in a responsible way. In a responsible way I am thinking about topics that contribute to the transparency and trust in the ecosystem like: patient centricity, being more inclusive in clinical trials; leading the way towards the sustainability topics; taking into consideration the risks for the patient in the right way, etc. Here I find my passion and with the team in Deloitte we want to contribute to enhancing the transparency and trust in the whole ecosystem.

I would love to hear your perspectives in relation to it. What is your view, based on your extensive experience? How do you look at the life sciences ecosystem? And how does the future of health look like to you?

Sini: Thank you, Aida. I think that the four areas you listed align with what EFPIA represents: prevention and cure, empowerment of patients, movement towards personalized therapies and enhanced development of innovative medicines. There are a few points I want to raise. Firstly, it is not only about the medicine itself. It's rather an integrated health care solution that utilize rapid diagnosis we need in the future. And really looking to the optimized treatment. And secondly that is delivered by multidisciplinary health care team to optimize expertise and resources. I think, that the global stakeholders need to be better connected and that would include industry in early development and later insuring the up-to-date and clear medical information.

And maybe lastly, the future of health care is off course digitalized, and the health care today lacks behind many other industries in terms of how digital tools are integrated. So I would think that from discovery and development to managing the information between regulator and industry, as well as how the right information on medicines reaches the patient is going to be digitalized. This enables faster development.

Aida: I'm really triggered by what you said. So it is not only about medicine but also about health care solutions. When I look at the ecosystem, I still see that there is a bit of disconnect between Life Sciences and Health Care. How can we organize this as one ecosystem, focusing on the patient and consumer perspective, and then looking at the bigger picture of what needs to be accomplished?

Sini: Whether it is medicine or another solution, it needs to be somehow better evaluated to address the gaps in the current system in Life Sciences. Everybody plays a role here, particularly industry. They need to create dividend, but also consider how their product is actually utilized by different countries and their health economics policies that are applied to that. So there is a lot to do in that regard. Access to medicines and healthcare remains one of the priorities to tackle.

And if you then ask me, what role does the Industry Association like EFPIA play in all of this? Our mission is to create that optimal environment for our innovative member companies to operate in. And that encompasses the regulation and the policy framework. So what we want to do is to contribute with the evidence from the practical operations, but also with the ideas on improvements. So I think we bring together that industry voice and represent that then forward to the other stakeholders like regulators and legislators. Dialogue with all stakeholders is crucial.

Aida: And when you look from a personal perspective, what is your personal mission? And how do you want to contribute to the future of health.

Sini: Last year, I went through an extensive leadership coaching program, where I formulated my personal mission. And it culminated into that I wake up every day in order to create a change for improvement. I like to see myself as a facilitator or accelerator for a change towards positive direction to achieve the elements we mentioned and how the future of health care could or should look like. That is what I think about every day when I do my work and it fits quite well.

Aida: Is there any particular element in the future of health that you are the most passionate about?

Sini: There are quite a few actually. Firstly to enable better decision making in Europe and make sense of the jungle of regulatory requirements and all the different players in it. So how can Europe enhance that framework? Based on CIRS R&D briefing from last year where Europe as a region had fallen on a sixth place in terms of the assessment timelines of new innovation. Also, newly realized CRA report about Europe’s share on global R&D investment shrinking by a quarter in 20 years is truly concerning.

As a pharmacist and also industry representative, I would like to see digitalisation that helps patients to get the information on medicines that they need better and quicker. One concrete thing is to move towards the electronic patient information, that allows patients to receive information in the way that they want to and at all times.

This is also one important sustainability aspect of the industry, particularly in current energy crises, expected shortage of supply materials and savings and decreasing environmental impact that are needed. But there is more. For instance, our campaign about proper handling of pharmaceutical waste in the environment and how to dispose medicines correctly is important. How to enhance the regulatory requirement and the environmental risk assessment to encompass lifecycle of a medicine in a better way without jeopardising patient access is another aspect. There are lots of concrete things we can do, and now is the time where pharmaceutical legislation can help to advance this. So I'm quite excited about that – time to create a change for improvements, as said.

What I am currently prioritizing is to finish my Ph.D. on the use of real-world data and evidence in medicines development and regulatory decision making. That is a hot topic. And I am hoping with my contribution to bring something new to that field and help to actually improve guidance and policy environment in that regard.

Aida: My last question is what is needed from the key stakeholders to create and facilitate change. What is needed to make sure that Europe is not ranked as number six any more?

Sini: I think we need that openness and the ability to listen to those various hurdles or potential opportunities and ideas on how the change could happen. And maybe it is about the hearts and minds piece and try to see a common goal rather than pull to different directions for usually obvious reasons. So seeing things in a much more holistic way and somehow committing to make that change together. But this requires trust which is not built in one day.

Although we are one European Union, we still have those individual countries with their own priorities and health management. Now, COVID maybe one positive thing out of that is that we see health as a common goal. And there are a lot of efforts to try to improve it. But then it's also about openness from regulators side to listen to industry and openness to hear those ideas and have the dialogue.

Europe finally has a pharmaceutical strategy. We never had that before. And the goal is to address access, availability and affordability, while boosting innovation. But it's a balancing act. And I think the next step is to get that balancing act right.

Aida: Yes, I like to close with that main message, the balancing act around the policy decisions. I really love that. Thank you for you openness and I wish you luck with finalizing your Ph.D. and your continued work at EFPIA.

And thank you all for reading this interview. Stay tuned for the next one.