In March, we invited the citizens of Barcelona to the debate “The Price of Medicines is Not Healthy: Alternatives for a Broken R+D Model”, at Palau Macaya. The roundtable analysed the current research system, the proposals that exist to reform it and guarantee citizen access to the medicines they need at affordable prices and the measures that can be taken by new local, regional and national governments to do so.
Participating were Olaf Valverde, Medical Director of the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi); Joan Bigorra, Deputy Director of Strategy and Innovation for ISGlobal; Vanessa López, Director of Salud por Derecho; and Rodrigo Barahona, Manager of the Planning, Monitoring and Learning Department at Oxfam Intermón. Gonzalo Fanjul, Director of Policy at ISGlobal moderated. No Es Sano took advantage of the opportunity to conduct local and regional meetings with representatives of local and regional governments to explain our proposals to them and discuss in depth what kind of role local and regional administrations can have in the petitions by all of our organisations and manifesto signatories. The meetings were with the Barcelona City Health Commissioner, Gemma Tarafa and Deputy Director, Davide Malmusi; as well as the Catalan Parliament Health Commission featuring attendance by its Chair, Alba Vergés (Junts pel Sí), and deputies Martín Eusebio (Ciudadanos), Assumpta Escarp (PSOE), Santi Rodríguez (PP) and Irene Rigau (Junts pel Sí). |