Objectives: 1.Access to Affordable Medicines 2. Medicines Safety, Added Therapeutic Value and Responsible Use 3. Democratisation of Medicines Policy
Activities:
1: Seek policy support from the Governments of Member States for alternative models of biomedical innovation—delinking R&D costs from the final price of a given medicine—as one component of improving access to currently unaffordable medicines
2: Promote the use of public-health sensitive IP management tools and TRIPS flexibilities in the EU to secure affordable access to medicines and ensure the sustainability of health systems
3: Seek public and high-level government support for initiatives that improve public access to clinical trial data and data on risk biases, and that enhance medicines’ pricing and reimbursement policies that contribute to sustainable health systems
4: Advocate for improved marketing authorisation procedures
5: Continue to engage new cohorts of medical students on the need to respond critically to pharmaceutical promotion, expanding our influence to research facilities and teaching staff
6: Monitor, contribute and react to emerging and ongoing EU policy developments and issue communication and policy materials related to HAI’s areas of expertise
7: Facilitate knowledge exchange on HAI’s areas of expertise to civil society and to new MEPs through the dissemination of recommendations related to EU medicines policy, engagement in meetings and events
8: Strengthen the HAI Europe Association of members to ensure that civil society’s voice is well represented in medicines policy discussions
9: Ensure continuation and transparency of HAI’s work and expand donor relations
We expect to reach over 1000 policy-makers, civil society representatives and members of the research community in the EU through our online and in-person advocacy efforts in 2020. We will produce over 60 outputs in line with the 16 deliverables outlined in our proposal.
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Against the epidemiogical background and evidence that was described in the FPA2018 – 2021, in 2020, AIDS Action Europe (AAE) will continue the work under the three objectives
1. AAE contributes effectively to the HIV, TB and hepatitis response in Europe
2. AAE provides platforms to communicate and facilitate collaboration, networking, and linking and learning
3. Continuous improvement of network collaboration through governance and internal management.

Herewith we will continue focusing on the following six core thematic areas identified by our members and partners:
- Community based voluntary counselling and testing
- Affordability of medicines
- Tackling legal barriers in the response to HIV, TB and hepatitis
- Criminalisation of HIV non-disclosure, exposure and transmission
- Sexual and reproductive health and rights
- Tackling stigma and discrimination

The application for the SGA 2021 is written in times when due to the SARS CoV-2 - Coronavirus the planning of activities for the next year is extremely difficult. AAE will implement the activities planned in the FPA for 2021 as much as possible, taking into consideration risk-mitigation scenarios in case that restrictions entail the adaptation of activities, for instance by conducting meetings online rather than face-to-face or other format changes. There are indications that, even if the Corona-Virus situation is improving, it will have a profound impact on collaboration, communication and content of international work in the field of HIV, viral hepatitis and TB. This application reflects also cross-sectional acivities when the expertise from the HIV, TB and viral hepatitis field for instance in tackling discrimination and stigma, criminalisation or affordability can be transferred to the Coronavirus situation.
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ERN-RITA brings together the leading European centres with expertise in diagnosis and treatment of rare primary immunodeficiency, autoimmune and autoinflammatory disorders, setting the stage for high standards of clinical care throughout Europe enabling centres of excellence to drive forward this pan-European initiative. Our network combines concerted efforts to improve patient care across Europe, and in particular enables patients in less well served countries to have access to the same high standards of care. Rare immunological disorders are life-threatening conditions requiring multidisciplinary care using complex diagnostic evaluation and highly specialised cutting edge therapies. The constituent groups brought together in RITA provide an exemplar of what has and can be achieved with rare diseases over time. Our groups from across Europe have already clearly demonstrated the ability to work together for the benefit of patients by constructing registries, surveying treatments and outcomes, conducting clinical research and devising guidelines for best practice which have been shown to improve outcomes. With the creation of our network we provide an opportunity for these excellent initiatives to be shared equitably all over Europe, as RITA will harmonize diagnostic and therapeutic guidelines and thus provide a common shared medical platform for all affected patients, independent of national and ethnic origins. The RITA network aims at harmonizing diagnostic and therapeutic guidelines for all affected patients, independent of national and ethnic origins, resulting in access to diagnostic tests and therapies such as biologic therapies, Immunoglobulin replacement, stem cell transplantation, and gene therapy. RITA members believe that, by improving understanding and awareness, diagnosis of these diseases, facilitating advances in treatment and educating physicians about these diseases, will ensure that every patient will benefit from clinical and scientific knowledge.
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ERNICA – This European Reference network aims to support specialised centres across Europe to provide care of the highest quality to patients with rare, inherited and congenital anomalies. These diseases are often low prevalence and complex. The network seeks to connect the most highly specialised centres in Europe so that professionals can share their knowledge and best practice. It also seeks to connect patient groups across the continent. It is hoped that the pooling of resources and expert information from both patients and professionals will facilitate access to high quality, multidisciplinary care for all European patients. The focus of the next 3 years will be; Expansion of the network across Europe (both healthcare providers and patient groups), development of disease-specific guidelines, consensus documents and ‘patient journeys’, data collection and benchmarking via use of a registry, organisation of training and development of training resources, multi-centre research and full implementation of the Clinical Patient Management System. ‘Fetal Medicine’ has been added as an additional work package and there are plans over the next 3 years for pre-natal guideline development and the establishment of an ERNICA pre-natal care network.
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