Science Academies Highlight Importance of Precision Medicine at EU Parliament

BRUSSELS, October 14, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

For the first time policy makers, patients, industry representatives and the scientific allergy and asthma community came together at the European Parliament to discuss the need for Precision Medicine. Today's symposium on the "European need for precision medicine in allergy and airways diseases" laid the foundation to define an action plan on how to deliver the cost-effective precision medicine to the allergic patient.

Precision medicine (PM) is an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual characteristics of a patient in genes, environment and lifestyle. PM will change Europe's healthcare dramatically as disease management will shift from acute and reactive medicine to a more tailored approach that is predictive, preventive, personalized and participatory, with patients as partners in the development of treatment options. PM will allow to predict more accurately which treatment and prevention strategies for a particular disease will work, when and in which groups of people. The benefit is improved patient-centered care, reduced costs of side-effects and better prevention, which increases public health.

The European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, Vytenis Andriukaitis, and MEP Sirpa Pietikäinen highlighted the value of this meeting aiming to add to the previous initiatives of EAACI to tackle the allergy burden in Europe, where more than 150 million people are affected by an allergic disease. In parallel EAACI is developing in cooperation with the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (AAAAI) a consensus statement on PM in allergic diseases led by EAACI President Antonella Muraro that will be published at the beginning of 2016.

Next steps are to join scientific academies, policy makers, patient organisations, and the pharma industry in a platform aimed to implement precision medicine in allergy and airways diseases, to ultimately improve patients' health.

About EAACI  

The European Academy of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, EAACI, is a non-profit organisation active in the field of allergic and immunologic diseases such as asthma, rhinitis, eczema, occupational allergy, food and drug allergy and anaphylaxis. EAACI was founded in 1956 in Florence and has become the largest medical association in Europe in the field of allergy and clinical immunology. It includes over 9,000 members from 121 countries, as well as 52 National Allergy Societies.  

http://www.eaaci.org