The EMA in Milan: the conflict of interest of Pani (formerly AIFA DG) breaks out

Fedaisf editorial staff

5 October 2017

Always in conflict of interest. Milan could lose EMA, the European Medicines Agency. It embarrasses the Italian delegate hired by private individuals

La Notizia Giornale.it – di Carola Olmi – 5 ottobre 2017

During the day you sit at the table of those who dictate the rules and at night you work for someone who has to abide by those rules. In Italy these cases of conflict of interest are not rare and after some initial embarrassment they are often forgotten. However, if we reproduce the same behavior in Europe, things change, and the ease with which we move around at home can present a very high bill. What our country could pay by losing a huge employment opportunity: the transfer to Milan of EMA, the European Medicines Agency. To undermine a candidacy that seemed well underway after Great Britain's exit from the European Union, and therefore the forced move from London, is a gentleman whose readers The news they have followed various events within Aifa, our National Medicines Agency, the professor Luke Pani.

Although Aifa asked him to return part of the gigantic fees received during the period in which he was general manager, exceeding the ceiling of 240 thousand euros established for public administrations, our Government on the indication of the same Authority on medicines (subject to the control of Ministries of Health and Economy) appointed him as the Italian representative in the CHMP of the EMA, the committee that has the last word in authorizing the placing on the market of medicines on European territory. A role from which Pani resigned in recent days to keep only the position of "executive director of global medical innovation" of Neurocog, a private company that deals precisely with services and consultancy for the development of medicines by Big Pharma. A big leap, apparently accelerated by the fact that EMA itself was about to detect the ongoing conflict of interest between the public and private sectors. Conflict according to Pani non-existent, because in his declaration on possible conflicts of interest he had written that Neurocog is not a pharmaceutical company. Then Pani himself took the time to ask the EMA for an opinion, and on 20 September, anticipating an obvious response, he resigned.

Jobs at risk – Of course, in what Pani did, no crime is recognized, because there are no European laws that prohibit the passage or cohabitation between public and private offices, but this type of behavior is culturally censored more than by the codes in Europe. hence the repercussions while deciding whether to assign the new EMA headquarters to Italy or to other countries that have requested it. A very important choice, on which Milan is in the running, because the Agency would bring hundreds of new jobs. We are therefore faced with a very serious fact, at least according to what was highlighted by the Cinquestelle parliamentarian Giulia Grillo, who presented an interpellation on 29 September asking the minister Beatrice Lorenzin if he was aware of what was happening.