EUCOMED Comments on the Commission Working Document – Consultation on the Future

The mission of Eucomed is to improve patient and clinician access to modern, innovative and reliable medical technology. The medical technology sector employs 435,000 people across Europe and it is growing at an annual rate of between 5 % and 6%.

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Eucomed represents 4.500 designers, manufacturers and suppliers of medical technology used in the diagnosis, prevention, treatment and amelioration of disease and disability.

The mission of Eucomed is to improve patient and clinician access to modern, innovative and reliable medical technology. The medical technology sector employs 435,000 people across Europe and it is growing at an annual rate of between 5 % and 6%.

Medical technology is one of the most innovative industries in Europe. Up to 8 (or €5.8bn) of medical technology sales are reinvested in R&D. Products have an average life cycle of only 18 months before an improved product is developed.

Eucomed applauds the intention and objectives of the EU 2020 Strategy paper . One of the major challenges though will be to ensure that future– and the review of current – policies and their implementation will be in line with the outlined strategy. A clear example of this is the issue around late payments (review of the EU Directive on Late Payments – see under 2).

Eucomed believes it can be an important partner in the discussion on how to further refine and implement such strategy.

General comments

The paper rightly indicates that cutting public spending in forward looking areas such as research, could jeopardize achieving the EU 2020 objectives. This is also true for spending in health and healthcare. While often considered by governments as a cost, providing sufficient funding for healthcare and striving to make the healthcare system more efficient by early adoption of new technologies, is instead an invaluable investment in society. A healthy society is one that is more likely to have better economic growth. For the EU 2020 Strategy to be successful, the EU and the member states will need to work together to make healthcare provision and the healthcare systems overall more efficient, not only by sharing best practices, but also by evaluating on an ongoing basis how such best practices in one member state can be implemented successfully in another member state.

How can the medical technology sector contribute to the goals of the EU 2020 Strategy ?

How can the medical technology sector contribute to the goals of the EU 2020 Strategy ?

growing at 5% to 6% annually. Safeguarding and further encouraging innovation could maintain and perhaps increase such employment growth rate.

This requires a number of mechanisms to ensure ongoing innovation within the EU, as well as a clear strategy to ensure the European medical technology sector can compete at equal level playing field globally.

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Ecrit le 14/04/10 | envoyer par mail | Imprimer | Document Joint