The TransAtlantic Business Dialogue (TABD) held its Innovation Conference Healthcare under the patronage of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has made transatlantic innovation a key tenet of the EU presidency. The conference, which brought together American and European participants, including political leaders and scientific experts, presented four recommendations to improve innovation in healthcare and healthcare delivery. Speakers at the TABD conference, noting aging demographics and escalating healthcare costs on both sides of the Atlantic, urged the European Union and the U.S. Government to:
- Recognize healthcare as an infrastructure component that serves as both the means to improve people's health and well-being and a key economic driver;
- Accelerate the deployment of healthcare innovations by harmonizing standards, streamlining approval processes and protecting intellectual property rights;
- Foster innovation and redirect financial incentives to focus on prevention, early detection and continuity of care; and
- Establish an expert panel to develop benchmarking and best practices, working with the European Commission, the U.S. Government and the TABD Innovation Working Group.
Among OECD countries, the healthcare sector will more than triple to $10 trillion by 2020, according to "HealthCast 2020: Creating a Sustainable Future," a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers. The report stated that the healthcare sector is challenged by a confluence of powerful trends that include increasing demands, rising costs, uneven quality and misaligned incentives.
"Our aging populations and rising demand for higher-quality care accentuate the inefficiencies across the healthcare spectrum," said Klaus Kleinfeld, President and CEO of Siemens AG and Co-Chair of the TABD Innovation Working Group. "Consequently, we need to put the patient at the center of an improved healthcare system by developing and deploying innovations in technology and service delivery."
Richard T. Clark, Chairman, President and CEO of Merck & Co., Inc. (USA) and Cochair of the Innovation Working Group called for developing new ways of thinking about healthcare investment and spending. "Advances in medical technology and patient care set the stage to deliver prevention instead of treatment. As we build this capability, we want governments and other financial providers to think of healthcare spending as an investment that should be encouraged not as a cost to be managed."
Speakers at the event included German Federal Minister of Education and Research Annette Schavan; European Commission Vice President Günter Verheugen; Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce David A. Sampson, Hans Hoogervorst former Minister of Health, Welfare and Sports, The Netherlands; and Newt Gingrich, Founder of the Center for Health Transformation and former Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives.
About the TransAtlantic Business Dialogue Innovation Conference Healthcare
As Co-Chairmen of the TransAtlantic Business Dialogue (TABD) Innovation Working Group Klaus Kleinfeld, CEO Siemens AG, and Richard Clark, Chairman, President and CEO of Merck & Co. Inc. (USA) co-hosted the TABD Innovation Conference Healthcare in Berlin on May 8, 2007. The TABD Innovation Conference was organized by the TABD and sponsored by AstraZeneca, General Electric, Microsoft, Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD), Pfizer, Philips, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Siemens AG.
About the TransAtlantic Business Dialogue
The TABD brings together the CEOs of more than 30 European and U.S. companies operating in the United States, Europe and globally, with the aim of promoting closer commercial ties between the US and the European Union. The current TABD Chairmen are Martin Broughton, Chairman of British Airways and Charles Prince, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Citigroup. Originally launched with the support of the U.S. Department of Commerce and the European Commission in Seville in 1995, it was relaunched in a new format in 2003. The TABD is a unique and effective organization whose primary goal is to help establish a barrier-free transatlantic market with the freest possible exchange of
goods, services and capital between the EU and US. The TABD advocates global trade liberalization as a means to greater prosperity for all countries, which in turn will help stimulate innovation, investment, economic growth, and job creation.
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