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1. How to tackle the COVID-19 curveball in cancer care

Author:
Emma Woodford
Publication Date:
02-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
European Policy Centre (EPC)
Abstract:
To battle Europe’s second-largest killer, the von der Leyen Commission proposed on World Cancer Day 2020 to create the Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan (EBCP). With a committed budget of €4 billion, it was the largest regional initiative on cancer undertaken by the EU institutions to date. Then COVID-19 threw a spanner in the works. Cancer services – from screening programmes to treatment centres and survivorship programmes – were temporarily stopped or heavily disrupted, creating disastrous effects. The EBCP was adapted to deal with the new situation, but on closer examination of the issues caused by the pandemic, clearly more needs to be done to better support patients living with cancer and their families. This Policy Brief argues that to mitigate the effect of the COVID-19 curveball in cancer care, the EU must not lose any time in implementing the EBCP. It should also urgently harness member states’ concerns to commit, beyond the newly invested EU4Health programme, to a deeper European Health Union. This should be empowered through 4 EU policy options to provide sustainable and effective protection for current and future cancer patients: protect and support the cancer care workforce by investing in training, remuneration and staff retention, and ensuring cross-border recognition of qualifications; design telemedicine in a way that works for everyone; rebuild public trust in healthcare providers; treat health as a long-term investment. Through strong investment in both primary prevention and early detection, the EBCP has the potential to reduce the number of people developing cancer in the EU. Improving access to quality cancer care and cancer survivorship will improve treatment outcomes and the quality of life of people living with or who have survived cancer.
Topic:
Health Care Policy, COVID-19, Medicine, and Cancer
Political Geography:
Europe

2. WHO Technical Report on Cancer Pricing Misses the Mark—It Should Focus on the “Demand Side”

Author:
Kalipso Chalkidou, Adrian Towse, and Richard Sullivan
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Abstract:
Criticising cancer medicine pricing as too high is what football fans know as an "open goal"—a target that is hard to miss. Yet somehow the World Health Organization (WHO) Technical Report on Cancer Pricing manages to do just that with a paper to the WHO Executive Board calling for price and cost transparency. The assumption goes that transparency will reduce the prices and costs of cancer medicines, a mantra that has united the Trump administration, the US Congress, and the Italian health minister with many NGOs who have called for “greater cost and price transparency”—a sentiment echoed by KEI, which states that “international action is required to improve transparency in reporting the costs of R&D and production, including public sources of funding.”
Topic:
World Health Organization, Health Care Policy, Medicine, Cancer, and Price
Political Geography:
Global Focus

3. Global Oncology in Rwanda

Author:
Darja Djordjevic
Publication Date:
03-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
Last summer, two major pharmaceutical companies, Pfizer and Cipla, reached an agreement to sell sixteen standard chemotherapy drugs at very low cost (purportedly only slightly higher than the manufacturing cost) to six African countries: Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Nigeria.1 This negotiated deal also included a plan for top American oncologists to simplify cancer treatment protocols, which an IBM team would then make available through an online, open-access tool. This development signaled an important moment in the politics of global health, one of growing awareness and advocacy around cancer in Africa and the Global South. While this particular deal was a positive and overdue development in the battle long-fought by care providers across the world who look after poor people with cancer, we have to wonder for how long such a deal will last, alongside other pressing concerns. Further, how does this initiative fit into the broader political economy of a profit-driven pharmaceutical industry always in search of new markets, with Africa being a potentially massive one?
Topic:
Public Health, Pandemic, and Cancer
Political Geography:
Global South