Programme / EU-Africa PerMed Consortium: Building links between Europe and Africa in personalised medicine.

Personalised medicine (PM) addresses the challenges of i) common medicines not being effective in treating large numbers of patients and ii) rising healthcare costs due to more prevalent chronic diseases and an ageing population, through dedicated diagnostics, tailor-made prevention and treatment strategies for individuals or groups, so patients receive the specific therapies that work best for them, and no money is lost on trial-and-error treatments. African countries are undergoing a demographic transition leading to increasing prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs,) that together with the infectious diseases burden represent a big challenge for the near future. Incorporating African topics in the global PM research agenda can contribute to shortening the existing health disparities between developed and developing countries, as well as facilitating the access of African countries to new tools and technologies that have the potential to make healthcare more efficient and equitable. This session is convened by The South African Medical Research Council as an active partner of the Europe Africa Personalised Medicine consortium (EU-Africa PerMed) an ongoing coordinating and support action funded by the European Commission H2020 programme, that seeks to facilitate and strengthen collaboration between Europe and Africa in PM at both scientific and policy level. The final aim is to facilitate the participation of African countries in the global Personalised Medicine (PM) research agenda. The project is identifying and engaging African stakeholders across the continent to understand the gaps and needs to develop PM to improve the health of the population. The preliminary outcomes of some of the analysis thus far includes an in-depth analysis of the research and innovation landscape of personalized medicine in Africa, and understanding of key research collaboration areas.

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World Science Forum Side Event – EU-Africa PerMed (euafrica-permed.eu)