by Esin Aysel Kandemir, ISOPP Advocacy Committee Chair

The ISOPP Advocacy Committee has experienced a rather busy, but enjoyable, time interval since its last update. 

Thanks to the hard work of our committee members, we represented ISOPP in the 24th WHO Expert Committee on the Selection and Use of Essential Medicines, from 24 to 28 April 2023. Our committee members supported the addition of pegfilgrastim to the Essential Medicines List considering its usefulness in clinical practice. However, the remaining drugs were perceived as having a low probability of adoption to national lists, including PD-L1 inhibitors, CDK 4/6 inhibitors, etc. These drugs were mostly approved but unfunded which creates an imbalance in equitable access at the national level considering the current situation in lower- and middle-income countries. 

Besides those issues related to funding, lower- and middle-income countries additionally are affected by the lack of high-quality health care system infrastructure, need of additional human resources and lack of high-quality, validated biomarker tests. Therefore, our committee strongly supports standardized treatment regimens for resource-constrained settings and will set to work on that topic. Further comments from ISOPP are available on the WHO website. We’re now waiting for the updated Essential Medicines List!

Furthermore, the Advocacy Committee is working on a position paper focusing on healthcare disparities. If you would like to join our Committee and provide your expert opinion or if you have any suggestions/ideas for specific projects we can work on in your country/region, please contact me via email at advocacy@isopp.org.

Esin Aysel Kandemir, ISOPP Advocacy Committee Chair