The FAMHP releases its annual report for 2018: patients remains at the centre of attention and an ongoing willingness to innovate and remain a quality partner

date: 27/06/2019

Improved communication with partner organizations, increased accessibility to innovation for patients with urgent medical needs, an increasingly significant presence on social media … 2018 was marked by exciting developments for the Federal Agency for Medicines and Health Products (FAMHP). You can discover everything in the annual report.

The FAMHP saw a number of changes in 2018. One of the most striking was the significant increase in the number of compassionate use programme notifications: in 2018, the number of patients potentially included in these programmes increased by 60 %, an impressive growth rate that means greater accessibility to innovation for patients with a medical need that cannot be satisfactorily treated with the existing treatments.

As regards the safety of medicinal products, the FAMHP also indicates an encouraging rise in the number of adverse effect notifications. Year by year, raising awareness in the general public and in healthcare professionals is bearing fruit, because there has been a steady increase in adverse effect notifications. Notifying adverse effects helps FAMHP to monitor medicinal products and improve their safety.

To raise its partners’ awareness of the key issues and inform them as efficiently as possible, the FAMHP uses their preferred quick, simple channels of communication, such as Twitter or Facebook, on which the agency’s messages were viewed over 2 500 000 times in 2018.

This year also marks the first time the annual report is presented in German. The 2018 results are this available in all national languages and English.

Xavier De Cuyper, Chief Executive Officer of the FAMHP:
“The patient and their needs are our agency’s raison d’être. This priority is clearly illustrated by the thousands of questions from citizens that were answered by our experts in 2018. Our inspection services, among others, also mobilised to address a sharp increase in the number of questions from professionals, notably concerning Brexit or the entry into force of the Falsified Medicines Directive. Patients and healthcare professionals contribute their experience from different points of view; from their own perspectives. And it is our duty to continually maintain these perspectives in order to guide our projects and our ambitions.”                                                                                               

To find out more, discover the 2018 achievements of the FAMHP in its digital annual report and give your opinion via the online survey.

Last updated on 27/06/2019