European Patient Group Announces Ambitious Plans

The new Internet Library from the European Patients’ Academy (EUPATI) will come online towards the end of 2015, and will be available in seven European languages (English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Polish and Russian), project director Jan Geissler revealed at last week’s workshop held in Warsaw, Poland, and organized by EUPATI.

According to a EUPATI statement issued after the workshop, “The lynchpin of the plan to engage hundreds of thousands of Europeans will be EUPATI's new Internet Library.” This Library will aim to reach 100,000 patients and consumers with low to middling health literacy levels, and they will be able to access information on themes like side effects and the specific aspects of the medicine development process.

EUPATI is a 12-country, seven-language project with a budget of 10.2 million euros that is due to run until 2017. For patient advocates and advocacy leaders from patient organizations, it aims to provide a so-called Toolbox that will include educational material for teaching others, print material and slide shows for presentations, an internet-based e-Learning course as well as webinars and videos. The plan is for 12,000 patient representatives to use the toolbox by January 2017.

EUPATI represents an effort to empower patients in medicines research and development, and to help them become an integral part of the process. In addition, it seeks to inform the wider public on issues of interest in the same fields, to introduce them to areas like clinical trials and how they can take a more active role in their healthcare, whether it be about medicine safety or the pricing mechanisms that make drugs accessible.

The Warsaw event was funded by the Innovative Medicines Initiative, a partnership of the European Commission and the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA).

Read the full release here.