Lauterbach: “Moonshot” strategy for clinical trials – “Medical Research Act will be passed next week”

“Completely new medicine” possible by combining AI and medical research

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Capital city congress reaches pre-corona visitor level

Berlin, 27 June 2024 – The Capital City Congress on Medicine and Health (HSK) is the central meeting of the healthcare industry in Germany, where numerous current healthcare policy issues are discussed.

The Federal Minister of Health, Karl Lauterbach, spoke about the Medical Research Act, which is due to be passed in the Bundestag next week.

“Germany is losing touch with clinical trials,” the minister stated in his comments on the law, adding that the gap between the highly innovative basic research in Germany and the further development into medicinal products was too large.

The Minister observed that countries such as Spain and Belgium were overtaking Germany in the realisation of clinical trials.

“When we developed the Medical Research Act, we used the terminology that we were attempting a moonshot strategy,” said the Minister. Under the leadership of the Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices (BfArM), clinical trials should be able to be conducted “quickly, thoroughly and also more cost-effectively than before”. In future, the evaluation of applications for clinical trials is to be limited to 26 days. “Then the moonshot will have been reached,” said the minister. Overall, the law is a “milestone” for research in Germany, but also in Europe, by setting “new standards”.

“Completely new medicine” possible by combining AI and medical research

Lauterbach referred in particular to the close cooperation with practitioners from the scientific community on the one hand, and the close coordination with the federal states on the other.

The minister sees impressive opportunities in the combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and clinical research.

“We will be able to predict protein structures, we will be able to see which antibodies work particularly well in which patients. Many things that are not yet possible will be possible,” said the Minister, adding that in the long term, we will see “a completely new medicine”.

The Medical Research Act would therefore be inconceivable without the aspect of digitalisation.

In future, digital patient files could be used to generate data every day, which could be combined with registers such as cancer registries or genome projects as well as data sets from health insurance companies.

AI processes could be used to build study hypotheses on this basis. With regard to data protection, the Minister emphasised that the data “never leaves the secure environment, so that data misuse is largely ruled out”.

Prof Dr Jens Scholz, Scientific Director of the Forum for Advanced Medicine at the Capital City Congress, believes that the law lays the foundations for “Germany to be at the forefront of medical research again”.

He pointed out that the disadvantages of the previous approach became particularly clear during the coronavirus pandemic, as other countries were able to collect epidemiological data very quickly at the time, which was not possible in Germany – particularly for data protection reasons.

With regard to the law, he pointed out that it would be desirable if a person’s entire health career could be tracked in future in order to gain insights. The Federal Minister of Health agreed: “Everyone needs a health identity,” said Lauterbach. On this basis, it could also be possible to send patients messages, for example when it comes to drug intolerances. 

Capital City Congress: Lots of dialogue, visitor level reached again as before Corona

Other particularly hotly debated topics at the Capital City Congress included the hospital reform, as well as the further financing of the healthcare system and the upcoming reforms.

Guido Pschollkowski, Managing Director of organiser WISO S. E. Consulting, was satisfied with the visitor response to the Capital City Congress, which runs until Friday:

“We have 4,800 registered participants and are thus back to the level before the coronavirus pandemic”. In addition, there are 150 exhibitors and 460 speakers at 140 events on site.

“The Capital City Congress is all about the further development of our healthcare system. This is where concepts are presented and opinions exchanged on how this can be achieved,” says Pschollkowski, emphasising the importance of the congress.