Ubiquitous Pharmacogenomcs - adopting testing for genetic variability in drug response in clinical practice

The 14th EACPT Congress was held from 29th June to 2nd July in 2019 in Stockholm as a partnership between the EACPT and the Swedish Society for Pharmacology, Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics.

Understanding how genetic variability influences both the desired response to medicines and risk of adverse drug reactions has the potential improve the benefits and reduce the risks of treatment with medicines. In this short video you can hear keynote EACPT Congress speaker Professor Henk-Jan Guchelaar discuss how clinical pharmacologists can implement these pharmacogenetic tests into clinical practice..
Professor Guchelaar coordinates a European Horizon 2020 project - U-PGx: Ubiquitous Pharmacogenomics - about implementation of pharmacogenetics in routine health care. 

Discussants  

Professor Henk-Jan Guchelaar, Head of the Department of Clinical Pharmacy & Toxicology Leiden University Medical Centre.
Professor Donald Singer: co-opted member of the Executive Committee of the EACPT.
 
The next EACPT Congress
The next EACPT biennial congress will be held in Athens. The programme will provide an international scientific and educational forum for discussion of clinical pharmacology and therapeutics, including personalised pharmacotherapy. See more on our website.

Joining the EACPT
Anyone from anywhere in the world with a professional interest in clinical pharmacology and therapeutics can now join the EACPT as an Individual Associate member.

Membership benefits include:

* Discounted registration fees for EACPT meetings
* Online subscription to the EACPT Official journal: the European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology
* Access to the EACPT’s worldwide network of Individual Associate Members
* Active involvement in EACPT 

25th Anniversary
The EACPT was founded 25 years ago and now includes as members all major national organisations for clinical pharmacology in Europe, as well as organisations from further afield internationally. The EACPT aims to provide educational and scientific support for the more than 4000 individual professionals interested in clinical pharmacology and therapeutics throughout the European region, with its congresses attended by a global audience. The EACPT also advises policy makers on how the specialty can contribute to human health and wealth. Find out more about the EACPT ...

Future EACPT Congresses

2021  Athens

2023  Rotterdam

2025  Helsinki

Tomorrow's medicines: key programme talks announced for EACPT Stockholm Congess 29 June - 2 July 2019

The next EACPT Congress will be held from 29th June to 2nd July in 2019 in Stockholm as a partnership between the EACPT and the Swedish Society for Pharmacology, Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics.

Early bird registration deadline - 10th April 2019.  Register online for the 2019 EACPT Congress in Stockholm

The Congress will address Tomorrow's Healthcare Challenges and will be held at the City Conference Centre - 5 minutes from Stockholm Central Station.

The Congress Reception on the evening of Saturday 29th June, will be held at Stockholm City Hall, the venue of the Nobel Prize banquet.

The Keynote Opening Lecture will be given by the President at the Karolinska Institute, Professor Ole Petter Ottersen, on global health and clinical pharmacology.

Professor Urs Meyer from Switzerland will give the 2019 EACPT Lifetime Achievement Award Lecture based on his work on individual variation in drug response.

Further awards will be presented, including Scientific Awards, including Young Investigator, and EACPT Education Awards.

Around 60 invited speakers are expected from throughout Europe and beyond. Congress keynote lectures will include:

Plenary lectures

Ylva Böttiger:  Clinical pharmacology reaching out - 25 years with EACPT

Ole Petter Ottersen:  Global health research and education in Europe - how can clinical pharmacology contribute?

Harry Sokol:  Gut microbiota - a new actor in pharmacology?

Urs Meyer:  Therapeutic Lessons from Human Individuality

Rosa Giuliani:  Update on treating breast cancer

Jenny Kindblom:  Pediatric clinical trials and their pitfalls 

Tim Nicholson:  New targets in psychopharmacology

Sylvie Laporte:  Meta-epidemiological studies to detect, quantify and adjust for bias in open-label trials

Stefan James:  Innovative ways of performing clinical trials

Björn Wettermark:  How to measure drug utilisation

Cardiovascular prevention

Stephane Laurent:  Update on treating hypertension

Gerard Rongen:  PCSK9 inhibitors - going lower but for whom and at what price? Paul Hjemdahl:  Dual or triple antithrombotic therapy - is two company and three a crowd?

An ageing population

Denis O'Mahoney:  STOPP/START decision support for elderly prescribing

Anne Spinewine:  Prescribing in the frail elderly

 

Workshops

Martin Henriksson:  How to perform a health economic study 

Olof Beck and Markus Meyer: How to measure drug exposure

Jan Marcusson:  How to make on oral presentation and feel good about it

Closing the money gap

Gerd Lärfars:  Horizon scanning frontiers

Andras Inotai:  How to solve money gap to ensure patient access to pharmaceuticals in EU counties

David Webb:  Health economics: big ideas from a small country

Personalized medicine : joint EACPT-EPHAR session

Henk Jan Guchelaar:  Clinical implementation of pharmacogenetics

Viktor Hlavac:  Pharmacogenetics of cancer chemoresistance

Seppo Ylä-Herttuala:  Cardiovascular gene therapy

Martina Schusler-Lenz:  Advanced therapy regulation in the EU

Interprofessional working

Ann Lykkegaard Sørensen:  Interprofessional approach for safer medication in psychiatry

Hanna Seidling:  Benchmarks for successful interdisciplinary collaboration

Debate: Deprescribing is Dangerous

Jamie Coleman:  For; Wade Thompson : Against

Targeting small populations

Caridad Pontes:  barriers to market access, 

Violeta Stoyanova:  drug designation and other regulatory challenges

Critically ill patients

Dario Cattaneo:  Anti-infectives in intensive care

Philippe Vignon:  New sepsis drugs in the pipeline: any reason for hope?

Christoph Stein:  New concepts in opioid analgesia

Antibiotic drug resistance

Johan Mouton:  Antimicrobial resistance. Could PK/PD be the answer?

Alexandra Aubry:  New treatment options for resistent tuberculosis

Polypharmacy: joint session with the Korean Society

Howard Lee:  Polypharmacy in Korea

Ho Sook Kim:  The clinical pharmacology perspectives for the optimal polypharmacy in Korea

Kees Kramers:  Polypharmacy: Acting on the cutting edge of safety, efficacy and compliance

Patient empowerment

Bettina Ryll:  Patient empowerment: Issues with introduction of a new class of drugs

Ann Langius Eklöf:  Smart phones provide smart patients

2020 drug strategy

Jordi Llinares:  achievements and future initiatives; Drug regulation in the 2020s:  Gonzalo Calvo: an academic perspective; Graziella Collu: a pharmaceutical industry perspective

Decision support

Matthew Doogue:  Alert, clinical decision support helping patients and hindering work flow

Lars L Gustafsson:  Clinical pharmacologists with computers - the way forward

Updates on the EACPT from the UK

The EACPT Executive Committee is meeting in early September 2018 in Birmingham in the UK West Midlands to plan for future activities. This coincides with the latest EACPT Focus meeting: Innovations in CPT Education - which is being held at the University of Birmingham from 7-8 September 2018. Delegates for the Focus meeting are expected from a wide range of countries, including Finland, Germany, Ireland, The Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Lithuania, Poland, Italy, Spain, Romania, Malta and the UK.

EACPT EC in Birmingham

Key matters for discussion by the EACPT EC included:

1. Future EACPT Congresses - the next is due to be held from 29th June to 2nd July in 2019 in Stockholm as a partnership between the EACPT and the Swedish Society for Pharmacology, Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics. The Congress will address Tomorrow's Healthcare Challenges and will be held at the City Conference Centre - 5 minutes from Stockholm Central Station.
The Keynote Opening Lecture will be given by the President at the Karolinska Institute, Professor Ole Petter Ottersen, on global health and clinical pharmacology.

Congress sessions and themes will include:

• Advanced therapies
• Chronic disease
• Clinical pharmacologists versus computers
• Closing the money gap  
• Drug regulation in the 2020's
• EACPT meets Asian Societies      
• EPHAR-EACPT joint symposium on personalised medicine
• Ethics in clinical research
• Global Health
• How to become a clinical pharmacologist
• How to measure drug exposure
• How to measure drug use
• How to perform a health economic study
• Interprofessional exchange for better drug treatment
• Misuse of medicines
• Patient empowerment
• Preparing tomorrow's prescribers
• Prescribing and deprescribing
• Targeting small populations  
• The critically ill patient
• Treating ageing populations 
• Treating cancer
• Treating children

2. New EACPT Awards for Best Scientific Paper in the previous 12 months on a clinical pharmacology or therapeutics theme. Authors may be from any discipline and do not have to be members of the EACPT. These awards will be launched in September 2018 and awarded initially every 2 months (6 times a year) from November 2018. 

Award winners will receive a free one year Individual Associate Membership (IAM) of the EACPT. Winners who are already EACPT IAMs will receive a 100€ prize. Papers which receive an EACPT Scientific Paper Award will be eligible to be considered for the biennial EACPT Scientific Award.

3. EACPT working groups on Education, Research, Young Professionals, and Regulation and Ethics.

4. New EACPT web series on Meet the Clinical Pharmacologists

5. Opportunities from links with international organisations such as the European Medicines Agency, IUPHAR, EPHAR and UEM|

6. Opportunities for Individual Associate Members including:
* discounted registration fees for EACPT meetings
* networking with colleagues worldwide through the global EACPT network of Associate Members
* active involvement in EACPT Working Parties and other activities  

Find out how to become an Associate Member of the EACPT  

The EACPT Executive Committee meets 6 monthly, with regular additional discussions by teleconference on key EACPT strategy and activities.

Future EACPT Congresses will be held in:
- 2019 Stockholm
- 2021 Athens
- 2023 Rotterdam

The EACPT was founded in 1993 - 25 years ago - and now includes as members all national organisations for clinical pharmacology in Europe, as well as organisations from further afield internationally. The EACPT aims to provide educational and scientific support for the more than 4000 individual professionals interested in clinical pharmacology and therapeutics throughout the European region, with its congresses attended by a global audience. The EACPT also advises policy makers on how the specialty can contribute to human health and wealth.

European Medicines Agency to move from London to Amsterdam

After a final round dead-heat vote by member states on Monday 20th November, following the drawing of lots, Amsterdam has been confirmed as the new home for the European Medicines Agency. On current plans, the EMA will be operating in Amsterdam from April 2019.

The EMA's Patients and Consumers Working Party annual meeting

Meantime the EMA's Patients and Consumers Working Party (PCWP) is holding its annual meeting with all EMA eligible patient/consumer consumer organisations to consider relocation preparedness, patient and consumer involvement in EMA activities, highlights from major EMA committees and updates on pharmacovigilance, information on medicines and future work programmes in 2018 and 2019 for the PCWP and the EMA's Healthcare Professionals Working Party.

The European Medicines Agency is concerned with regulation of medicines and other advanced therapies for humans and animals for 28 countries across the European Union.

The EMA has established mechanisms for involving patients in regulatory assessment: patients’ value perception and value systems. The EMA also has an increasing remit to engage with stakeholder organisations and to improve transparency in its activities for the ~510 million citizens of the European Union. Furthermore the EMA has a major role in educating patients, carers and health care professionals about medicines.  

There remain many decisions and actions for the coming months needed to ensure the smooth relocation of the EMA to Amsterdam and either to develop systems to retain UK expertise for the EMA or replace that expertise. For the EMA, these include:

• maximising staff retention
• maintaining capacity to continue the work of the EMA 
• continuing productive engagement with stakeholder groups: patients, carers, healthcare professionals ...
• maintaining the capacity of the EMA to engage with the public

For the UK, there are pressing questions regarding the future regulation of medicines in the UK post-Brexit, the impact of loss of international influence of UK regulators and other experts on medicines and the impact of loss of biotech and pharmaceutical companies from London to Amsterdam.

Report on the 2017 EACPT Congress in Prague

The EACPT 2017 Congress was held in Prague from 24th-27th June with 566 participants from all 5 continents - 28% from beyond the European Region, from Australia to China, Japan and South Korea to the USA. 487 abstracts were presented as 171 oral communications and 316 e-poster presentations were given by delegates from the European Region and around the world.

Delegates by global region

The Congress included 2 plenary sessions, 22 parallel sessions with Keynote Lectures, 5 Oral Communications sessions and 3 Guided Poster Sessions on current issues for research, education and clinical practice on safe and effective use of medicines.  The programme provided an international scientific and educational forum for discussion of clinical pharmacology and therapeutics, including personalised pharmacotherapy.

Countries with 5 or more delegates

Themes included the latest developments on effectiveness and safety of medicines, clinical pharmacology in clinical practice, pharmacokinetics/systems pharmacology, including in special populations, innovative techniques, eHealth, biomarkers, education, advanced practices in topics such as drug discovery, drug development, biological therapies, global health with a focus on access to safe medicines, new pharmacology and pharmacotherapy, safety in prescribing and updates on personalised medicines, as well as updates on specific therapeutic areas, including cardiovascular disease, infectious disease, nephrology, oncology, neurology and psychiatry.

Future EACPT Congresses:
- 2019 Stockholm
- 2021 Athens
- 2023 Rotterdam

Number of delegates by region

The EACPT was founded 25 years ago and now includes as members all national organisations for clinical pharmacology in Europe, as well as organisations from further afield internationally. The EACPT aims to provide educational and scientific support for the more than 4000 individual professionals interested in clinical pharmacology and therapeutics throughout the European region, with its congresses attended by a global audience. The EACPT also advises policy makers on how the specialty can contribute to human health and wealth.

Clinical Therapeutics, the Official Journal of EACPT.

In memoriam: Professor Giampaolo Velo (1943-2017)

The field of clinical pharmacology has lost one of its pioneers. On August 17, 2017 Giampaolo Velo, cofounder and former chairman of EACPT, died after a period of illness in Verona, Italy.

His research activity started from experimental pharmacology, in particular the area of inflammation, and then gradually moved to clinical pharmacology, expanding his interests to pharmacovigilance, drug information and ecopharmacovigilance.

Prof. Velo was secretary of the Italian Society of Pharmacology (SIF) from 1988 to 1992, chairman of the Section of Clinical Pharmacology of SIF (1994-1996 and 2003-2007) and councilor of IUPHAR, Clinical Pharmacology Division (1992-2000). Cofounder of EACPT, he was vice Chairman (1995-1999) and then Chairman (1999-2003). He was also president of the International Society of Pharmacovigilance (ISoP) from 2003 to 2006.  He was the organizer of CPT 2000-Seventh Conference on Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics and Fourth Congress of the European Association for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, held in Florence, July 2000.

Giampaolo was curious, ironic and full of a contagious enthusiasm, but also accurate and scrupulous if needed.  We can never forget the scientific events he organized over many years in the beautiful village of Erice, Sicily, as director of the Ettore Maiorana Foundation, in a friendly and collegial atmosphere. We extend our deepest sympathy to his wife Giulia, his son Stefano, and his daughters Stefania and Elisabetta. EACPT will miss you.

Congress scientific chair Cristina Avendaño discussing the EACPT Madrid conference

Cristina Avendaño

Around 800 delegates are now in Madrid for the  12th biennial Congress of the European Association for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics which is being held from 27th to 30th June 2015. 

Over 500 abstracts have been accepted from 66 countries from all 5 continents for presentation as e-posters and oral presentations.

In this recording at the start of the Congress, Cristina Avendaño, Chair of the Congress Scientific Committee and Chair of the Spanish Society for Clinical Pharmacology  discusses her hopes for this important international event with EACPT Secretary Donald Singer.

Update from Croatia on the 2015 EACPT Madrid Congress

The Executive Committee of the European Association for Clinical Pharmacology and

Rijeka, Croatia

Therapeutics (EACPT) is meeting from 26-28 September in Rijeka in Croatia, hosted by the Croatian Society for Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics    
The main business of this EC meeting includes planning for:
-  the 12th biennial EACPT congress to be held from

Rijeka port

27-29 June 2015 in Madrid
-  further interaction with the official EACPT journal Clinical Therapeutics (online access is a benefit for individual associates of the EACPT)  
-  the next EACPT focus meeting, following the successful EACPT Cardiovascular Focus Meeting held in Nijmegen in the Netherlands, 3-5 July 2014 (selected papers will be published shortly in the offical EACPT journal - Clinical Therapeutics
- interaction with key policy organisations interested in medicines and patient safety, including the European Medicines Agency. EACPT chair Professor Gonzalo Calvo is inaugural co-chair of the Healthcare Professionals Working Party of the European Medicines Agency.

EACPT biennial congresses provide excellent opportunities to showcase issues of topics of  concern to the internationalclinical pharmacology and therapeutics community, through timely and accessible original research presentations and commentaries to policy-makers, health and industry professionals, health technology providers, patient groups and academia.

The Madrid 2015 Congress will bring together a wide range of international delegates,

Royal Palace in Madrid

including health professionals, clinical and life scientists, policy makers, professionals from the biotechnology and pharmaceutical communities and others interested in the spectrum from basic to clinical pharmacology and pharmacotherapy, and from drug discovery to regulatory affairs. 
Key themes at the Madrid congress are expected to include:
- medicines and global health, 

- regulation of biosimilar medicinal products, 

- novel insight into drug ADME,  
- new models of public-private partnership in clinical research, 

- risk adapted clinical trial interventions, 

- pharmacoepidemiology and pharmacovigilance, 

- new pharmacological interventions against Alzheimer's disease,  

- research with electronic health care data,
- advice on writing papers from the Editor of Clinical Therapeutics

- heterogeneity in drug response, 

- the patient's voice in drug selection decisions,  

- translational medicine and pharmacogenetics,  

- therapeutics of wide range of common and serious diseases
- impact of immunosuppression on cancer risk,

- health policy and safe prescribing. 

Sessions will also include discussion about and opportunities for networking in relation to new EACPT-facilitated research networks.

See website for the 12th EACPT Congress to be held in Madrid from 27-29 June 2015.