Parliamentary Breakfast: National Decade against Cancer: What are our joint goals?

On Wednesday, February 13, 2019, AmCham Germany's Healthcare and Life Sciences Committee together with the LAWG-Policy Group* on Oncology hosted a parliamentary breakfast at the Deutsche Parlamentarische Gesellschaft. The event's topic was: "National Decade against Cancer: What are our joint goals?"

The National Decade against Cancer is embedded in the coalition agreement and one of the twelve milestones of the government's Hightech-Strategy 2025. The initiative officially started on January 29, 2019, and aims at reducing cancer diseases and at providing better and longer lives to cancer patients. Additional goals are to strengthen Germany as a location in cancer research in the fields of prevention, early diagnosis, and treatment.

On this occasion, members of parliament from the committees on health, research, economic affairs, and digital agenda as well as representatives from federal ministries, the chancellery, state representations as well was business representatives met to discuss policy options and possibilities. Panelists comprehensively discussed the initiators' goals and possible cooperation to guarantee the initiative's success. The discussion was moderated by FAZ-journalist Adreas Mihm and the panel included:

  • Thomas Rachel, MdB, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research 
  • Karin Maag, MdB, Spokesperson for health policy at the CDU/CSU Parliamentary Group
  • Eva Schumacher-Wulf, Editor-in-Chief at MammaMia
  • Prof. Dr. Michael Hallek, Hematologist and oncologist at the University of Cologne
  • Prof. Dr. Markus Kosch, Vice President, Global Lead Immunooncology, RCC and Lung Cancer at Pfizer Oncology

*Several of AmCham Germany's pharmaceutical and biotech as well as other companies are organized in the LAWG - the Local American Working Group. The LAWG-Policy Group Oncology aims at identifying relevant issues regarding the licensing of drugs, medical diagnosis, and therapy and compensation of haemato-ocological diseases. The Policy Group develops position papers in order to get involved in the political dialogue with regard to health policy. The following companies are members of the Policy Group on Oncology: AbbVie Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG, Amgen GmbH, AstraZeneca GmbH, Bayer Vital GmbH, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharma GmbH & Co. KG, Bristol-Myers Squibb GmbH & Co. KGaA, Celgene GmbH, Gilead Sciences GmbH, Janssen-Cilag GmbH, Lilly Deutschland GmbH, MSD SHARP & DOHME GmbH, Novartis Pharma GmbH, Pfizer Deutschland GmbH, Sanofi Genzyme and Roche Pharma AG.

Heather Liermann

Head of Department

Membership Engagement & Development