Stronger together: Solidarity for an accessible COVID-19 vaccine

WEBINAR ENDED

About This Webinar

The European Health Forum Gastein invites you to join a webinar that will consider how COVID-19 has reshaped the vaccines landscape in terms of R&D, procurement, and international cooperation. Has a new distribution of stakeholder roles and responsibilities emerged and if so, what are the implications and are they here to stay, to help tackle future crises? We will discuss the private and public sector responses to COVID-19 as well as challenges, opportunities, incentives and timelines around therapeutics, diagnostics and potential vaccines. The ongoing pandemic has shown the degree of cross-country and cross-stakeholder collaboration that can be mobilised swiftly and at short notice with the necessary political will. Could the current situation successfully produce the traction for sustainably and equitably changing today’s pharmaceutical R&D reality, especially in regard to vaccines development?

Speakers:
Kate Elder, Senior vaccines policy advisor, Médecins Sans Frontières Access Campaign

Frederik Kristensen, Deputy CEO and Director of People, Planning and Policy, Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI)

Thomas Cueni, Director General, International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers (IFPMA)

Clemens Martin Auer, President, European Health Forum Gastein/Special Envoy for Health at the Austrian Federal Ministry of Social Affairs, Health, Care and Consumer Protection

Moderated by: Ilona Kickbusch, Founding Director, Global Health Programme, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland

Welcome by Dorli Kahr-Gottlieb, Secretary General, European Health Forum Gastein

Presenters

Ilona Kickbusch

Founding Director, Global Health Programme, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland

Professor Kickbusch is senior advisor to the Regional Directors of the WHO Regional Office for Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean. She has been deeply involved in the development of the Health 2020 European health policy framework, and is also a member of the independent Ebola interim assessment panel of the WHO.

In Switzerland, Prof Kickbusch serves on the executive board of the Careum Foundation and on the expert panel to the Federal Councillor to advise on the implementation of the Swiss Health Strategy 2020. She has contributed to innovation in health in many ways throughout her career and now advises organisations, government agencies and the private sector on policies and strategies to promote health at the national, European and international level. She has worked with the WHO at various levels and in academia as professor at Yale University, and has received honorary doctorates from the Nordic School of Public Health and the University of Girona.

Frederik Kristensen

Deputy CEO and Director of People, Planning and Policy, Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI)

Frederik Kristensen, MD has been the Deputy CEO of CEPI since January 2017, and took on a dual role as Director for People, Planning and Policy from January 2019.
Before joining CEPI, Dr Kristensen was a senior advisor on innovation at the World Health Organization in Geneva, in the Family, Women’s and Children’s Health Cluster. In that role he focused on projects to promote access to life-saving commodities, supporting projects in 20 African and three Asian countries in collaboration with UNICEF and UNFPA and over 100 implementing partners. He also worked on developing the innovation agenda at WHO and some of its public-private partnerships in the area of Women’s and Childrens’ health.
Dr. Kristensen is a healthcare executive with previous experience from the Norwegian Development Agency, hospital management and the pharmaceutical industry. He has started and run successful companies in the areas of health economics and decision support. At the start of his career, he worked as a general practitioner in rural settings. He is an MD from the Universities of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK, and Oslo, Norway and with an MPH/MBA degree from the University of California, Berkeley.

Kate Elder

Senior vaccines policy adviser, Médecins Sans Frontières Access Campaign

The MSF’s Access Campaign pushes for access to, and the development of, life-saving and life-prolonging medicines, diagnostic tests and vaccines for patients in MSF programs and beyond. The MSF Access Campaign's vaccines work focuses on advocacy and policy measures for the development of more appropriate and affordable vaccine products for developing countries. Prior to joining MSF, Kate worked on immunization and child health programmes at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Kate has also worked on HIV and AIDS education at UNESCO, and as a researcher under a Fulbright scholarship while living in Botswana. She holds a Master of Science (MSc) in International Health.

Thomas B. Cueni

Director General, International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers (IFPMA)

Mr. Cueni is Secretary of the Biopharmaceutical CEO Roundtable (BCR), a policy forum of the global CEOs of IFPMA member companies. He is also Chair of the Business at OECD Health Committee, and also serves on the Board of Directors of the City Cancer Challenge (CCan), an initiative aiming to improve cancer care in major cities in low- and middle-income countries.

Prior to joining IFPMA he was Secretary General of Interpharma, the association of pharmaceutical research companies in Switzerland, and for many years was a member of the Board and Chair of a key committee of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations. Prior to his appointment with Interpharma, Mr. Cueni had a career as a journalist, inter alia as London correspondent for the “Basler Zeitung” and “Der Bund”, and he served as a Swiss career diplomat with postings in Paris (OECD) and Vienna (IAEA, UNIDO). Mr Cueni studied economics and politics from University of Basle, the London School of Economics, and the Geneva Graduate Institute for International Studies.

Clemens Martin Auer

Special Envoy for Health, Federal Ministry for Labour, Social Affairs, Health and Consumer Protection, Austria

Clemens Martin Auer is Special Envoy for Health for the Federal Ministry for Labour, Social Affairs, Health and Consumer Protection, with the focus on international, multilateral and bilateral health policy issues, particular WHO (nominated member of the Executive Board), the United Nations, the EU, the OECD and the European Observatory. He was from March 2003 to January 2007 Head of Cabinet of Minister of Health Maria Rauch-Kallat and from September 2005 until September 2018 Director General for the Austrian health system (health care planning, financing, quality and digitization) and international affairs (EU, WHO, OECD, UN). In this capacity he worked on almost all major healthcare reform projects in Austria since 2003. He was also the Co-Chair of the EU eHealth Network and he is the President of the European Health Form Gastein and a member of the Advisory Board of the European Forum Alpach.