First of all I’d like to say that the European Cancer Patient Coalition is representing more than 420 patient organisations from all over Europe. One of the missions of the European Cancer Patient Coalition is trying to document disparities and inequalities and look for lobbying European Parliament Commission and doing policy and activity for trying to overcome these inequalities. So as far as is concerned with access to precision oncology, we feel that this is really the most important issue for cancer patients because this means to avoid toxicity, this means to avoid side effects, this means also to have a better life after the treatment and when the patients are cured. But we know that to have access to precision oncology means also to have access to innovation. We know that there are a lot of barriers all over Europe concerning access to innovation because we know that innovation means innovative drugs that have higher costs and we know that unfortunately, for example, 1,500 melanoma patients in the Eastern countries could have been cured if they could have had access to innovative drugs but unfortunately they didn’t and they died. So now we are living with the paradox of having new medicine that can cure cancer patients and patients cannot have access to that.

So what we are trying to do is being the kind of protagonist of going out of these meetings and trying to see how we can give a patient to have access to all the research being done. Research is much [?? 2:24] for innovation compared to the healthcare system. So then what we are trying to do first of all is trying to be very active in the Joint Action on Cancer Control. The Commission is very much involved in trying to harmonise the healthcare system for cancer patients and we were very active in the Joint Action on Cancer Control where 17 countries were working together for sharing recommendations. There we were trying to give recommendations for the harmonisation of national cancer plans. The national cancer plans are the places where the healthcare system can be changed and harmonised and we know that to have access to precision medicine you don’t need only to have innovative drugs but you need to have a lot of other things. You need to have a healthcare system that has infrastructures in condition to allow hospitals to perform, to abrogate this kind of treatment. That means to have not only the medical oncology but have all the molecular biology and all the treatments that are needed for this. Unfortunately this is not the case in several countries so the harmonisation of national cancer plans is the tool that we are using, trying to have also a better preparation of healthcare providers. Because the use of innovative medicine and access to innovation and to precision oncology means to have also the much better form, the people that are working in the hospital.

Then the other thing is also sustainability. So then we are trying to see and to work… We know that we cannot hope to have more funds for innovation. So if we are trying to have innovation into the healthcare system we have to work to have a better healthcare system working. So that means we should try to work for updating obsolete procedures and eliminate waste and then trying to find funds for innovation. So sustainability is a very important thing. As far as is concerned for sustainability it’s also very important to have access to biomarkers. The biomarkers are also another barrier. We [?? 5:23] where trying to find out access of patients to biomarkers and in several countries the healthcare systems are not paying for biomarker access. Then in several others they even don’t exist. So then this means that without biomarkers precision medicine cannot be done.

So actually what we really are trying to do is pushing towards just overcoming difficulties. We have been doing in the Joint Action on Cancer Control also a policy paper on inequalities and we are looking not only at [?? 6:14] at the end of this talk, we are not looking only to precision oncology, but we are mainly devoted to have the opportunity to give patients access to a good surgery, good radiotherapy, because we don’t forget that surgery and radiotherapy are curing people at a very cheap level. So that is our main mission – to have at least this working at high level.

The last thing that I’d like to say is that, once again, last year just started a new joint action- The Innovation Partnership for Cancer Control. There we are also the only patient organisation present and there we have a very important role. First of all in the implementation of all the recommendations that come from the Joint Action on Cancer Control and then also to try to work for having genomics inserted into the healthcare system. Therefore we hope that all the nice things, all the nice results, all the hope that in this meeting we are listening to can be practically also used for cancer patients.