New co-chairs elected for working parties for healthcare professionals and for patients and consumers

EMA’s Patients' and Consumers' Working Party (PCWP) has elected Marilena Vrana of the European Heart Network (EHN) as new co-chair. The Healthcare Professionals' Working Party (HCPWP) has elected Rosa Giuliani of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) as new co-chair. Together with Juan Garcia Burgos, Head of Public Engagement at EMA, they will co-chair the meetings of their respective working parties for the next three years. The vote took place during the September 2022 meeting of both working parties.

Marilena Vrana has extensive experience in membership associations and serves currently as Manager of Patients and Research at EHN. She is also a member of the Heads of Medicines Agencies (HMA) and EMA’s Big Data Steering Group. She follows Kaisa Immonen in the role of co-chair of the PCWP. Ms Vrana said: “Meaningful patient and consumer involvement in the regulatory process for novel products, whether medicines, medical devices or technologies, and throughout the lifecycle of medicines, is a key factor for public trust. People’s needs and expectations are important to be factored-in from the outset to ensure relevance, value, efficacy, and adherence in future innovations. I am thankful for the PCWP members’ trust to act as their co-chair and pursue our common goal together.”

Rosa Giuliani is a medical oncologist. She is currently a Board member of ESMO. Since 2020, she is Director of Public Policy and Chair of the ESMO Global Policy Committee. She served as core member of EMA’s Scientific Advisory Group in Oncology (SAG-O) from April 2012 until June 2021. She follows Ulrich Jäger in the role of co-chair of the HCPWP. “Equal access to optimal care, including innovation and research, is a fundamental right of every citizen in the EU. As healthcare professionals, our duty is to ensure the application of this principle. Dialogue and collaboration with regulators through the HCPWP represent an unmissable opportunity to address critical healthcare topics and their solutions in a pragmatic and inclusive way” she says. “It is an honour for me to co-chair this group of fantastic organisations. My heartfelt thanks to all of them for trusting me. This is a terrific time to unite our efforts; together we can genuinely strive for modern and efficient public health.”

The PCWP and HCPWP are formal working parties of EMA, composed of representative organisations of patients, consumers and healthcare professionals as well as representatives from EMA’s human scientific committees. They support and monitor the involvement of patients, consumers, healthcare professionals and their organisations in Agency activities. They identify opportunities and challenges that may need special attention, particularly in the context of their respective frameworks for interaction and engagement.

2022-25 workplan

The joint 2022-2025 workplan for the Patients’ and Consumers’ Working Party (PCWP) and the Healthcare Professionals’ Working Party (HCPWP) was endorsed by EMA’s scientific committees during the September 2022 meeting.

The work plan sets out the areas of work common to both working groups and it is subject to annual reviews to enable refinement of the proposed actions.