Immediately calls on new President of EU Commission to prioritise Healthcare
Date
25 Sep 2019
Sections
Health & Consumers
InfoSociety
- Christoph Stoller (General Manager Germany/Austria for Teva Pharmaceuticals) announced as President of Medicines for Europe for a two-year mandate
- Priority to address the issue of essential medicines shortages across Europe
- First action to call on newly appointed President of European Commission Ursula von der Leyen to establish a new pharmaceutical forum focused on sustainable access to medicines for all EU citizens
Brussels, 25 September, 2019 – Christoph Stoller was elected as President of Medicines for Europe today for a 2 year period.
Christoph is currently General Manager for Teva Germany and Austria, and has taken an active role on the Medicines for Europe Board over the last 5 years.
To mark the launch of his Presidency, Christoph outlined four key priorities for his two year mandate:
- Driving the use of high quality generic, biosimilar and value added medicines to ensure equitable and sustainable access to medicines ;
- Addressing supply chain vulnerabilities and tackling the economic root causes of medicines shortages
- Innovating in digital healthcare, which will unquestionably bring additional significant benefits to patients and healthcare systems ;
- Continue to progress industry commitment and investment to minimize environmental impact
Director General of Medicines for Europe, Adrian Van Den Hoven, commented: “With over 25 years of industry experience and a true passion for healthcare, Christoph will continue to drive the industry on sustainable access to medicines for patients. Over the last 10 years our industry has doubled access to medicines for patients with diabetes and cardiac conditions and increased the quality of life for a huge number of patients with chronic conditions. Christoph’s leadership will help our industry accelerate this trend.”
Speaking at the launch of his Presidency, Christoph commented: “With our companies providing 67% of dispensed medicines in Europe, there has never been a more important time for the generic, biosimilar and value added medicines industries to help national health systems address the challenges of sustainability driven by an ageing population, and the increased prevalence of chronic diseases.
The current situation across Europe with regards shortages of essential medicines needs to be tackled. Our industry is ready to partner with governments to rapidly introduce policy reforms to ensure sustainable access to and availability of medicines. I call on the Commission and its newly elected President Ursula von der Leyen together with the designated Commissioner for Health Kyriakides to take action on sustainable access to medicines for patients, by setting up a high level pharmaceutical forum to tackle the challenges in the medicines sector.
I look forward to working with policy makers and stakeholders to strengthen the health and well-being of the citizens who rely on our medicines across Europe.”
About Christoph Stoller
Christoph Stoller is a Senior Vice President of Teva and President Medicines for Europe.
In his current role as General Manager for Teva´s cluster Germany & Austria he is responsible for Teva´s Generics, OTC and Specialty Medicines businesses and he is Managing Director of all Teva´s legal entities in Germany. Until June 2017 he served as Chief Operating Officer Global Generic Medicines Europe. As part of that role he also led all activities integrating Actavis Generics into Teva in Europe as Chief Integration Officer Europe. In addition, he was responsible for the negotiations to get the approval of the European Commission and all associated divestment activities.
Christoph has been a member of the Board as well as of the Executive Committee of Medicines for Europe since 2014. Furthermore he has been pivotal in setting up the sector group on Value Added Medicines and has chaired that sector group until 2017.
Christoph has been working for Teva Europe in various roles with increasing responsibility since 2011 after having joined Teva as General Manager in Switzerland in July 2008. Before joining Teva he worked for Zur Rose Group as member of the Executive Board and General Manager Helvepharm, DSM, F. Hoffmann-La Roche and Swiss Re.
Christoph is a Swiss citizen and has a degree in business administration from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland (lic.oec.HSG).
About Medicines for Europe
Medicines for Europe represents the generic, biosimilar and value added medicines industries across Europe. Its vision is to provide sustainable access to high quality medicines, based on 5 important pillars: patients, quality, value, sustainability and partnership. Its members directly employ 190,000 people at over 400 manufacturing and 126 R&D sites in Europe, and invest up to 17% of their turnover in R&D investment. Medicines for Europe member companies across Europe are both increasing access to medicines and driving improved health outcomes. They play a key role in creating sustainable European healthcare systems by continuing to provide high quality, effective generic medicines, whilst also innovating to create new biosimilar medicines and bringing to market value added medicines, which deliver better health outcomes, greater efficiency and/or improved safety in the hospital setting for patients. For more information please follow us at www.medicinesforeurope.com and on Twitter @medicinesforEU.
Medicines for Europe Communications: Kate O Regan koregan@medicinesforeurope.com