HIPRA took part once again in the European Health Summit (EHS), the pan-European forum held regularly in Brussels that brings together policymakers, health sector leaders, industry, research, and other key stakeholders, with the aim of defining and driving Europe’s health agenda.
Carles Fàbrega, Managing Director of HIPRA’s Human Health Division, represented the company in the roundtable “Planet, Patients, Pathogens: the One Health debate”, stressing the need for Europe to “move forward to react more quickly”, as happened with COVID-19, in the event of a new pandemic that threatens global health. “We know there will be new pandemics; we don’t know which pathogen will cause them, but we do know there are useful mechanisms” to respond more swiftly, both in funding and in regulation and cooperation.
During his speech, Fàbrega advocated for the company’s decisive choice in 2008 to abandon the production of antibiotics and focus exclusively on the prevention provided by vaccines. “It was not an easy decision,” he said, but it was the right one to seek alternatives to antimicrobial resistance.
In this regard, he expressed his conviction that vaccines are part of the “solution” to antimicrobial resistance (AMR), that is, the ability of certain microorganisms to counteract the effects of medicines (such as antibiotics) designed to eradicate them. The roundtable, in fact, served to highlight AMR, a “silent pandemic” that Fàbrega believes must be addressed before it becomes “noisy.” He called on institutions, industry, and civil society to react and to invest not only in new antibiotics but also in prevention tools and health preparedness.
Fàbrega took part in the event alongside Laurent Muschel, Deputy Director of HERA (the European Commission authority working to ensure Europe’s readiness for future pandemics); Mónica García, Spain’s Minister of Health; Beth Thompson, Executive Director at the Wellcome Trust; and AB Osterhaus, Vice-President of the European Scientific Working Group on Influenza (ESWI), in a debate moderated by Sarah-Taissir-Bencharif, a Brussels-based health journalist.
