Interview with EHA’s European Affairs Committee Member, Martin Kaiser
Professor Martin Kaiser is a Consultant Hematologist at The Royal Marsden and a Clinician Scientist at The Institute of Cancer Research in London. For the past six years, Martin has imparted his valuable expertise to EHA’s European Affairs Committee. As he prepares to rotate off, Martin looks back on his contributions and on what he found most rewarding.
From a hematology perspective, what regulatory changes do you believe are still needed, and what areas do you think should be improved?
Hematology has been and is such a dynamic field, in part thanks to an innovation-friendly regulatory environment. With many novel and many advanced treatments, often for rare conditions, ensuring this pace continues is a key priority.
But there are many other aspects, including academia-developed cellular therapies, treatment optimization questions, and future repurposing opportunities of an ever-growing number of very clever off-patent medicines. And, especially with the demand for personalized care increasing, a need for better in vitro diagnostic assessments.
It is an exciting field with many areas of novelty in which clinicians and researchers, through their first-hand experience, can make a real difference.
Over the past years, you have been an enthusiastic contributor to the Cancer Medicines Forum, on behalf of hematologists. Can you tell us more about this initiative?
The Cancer Medicines Forum is a joint initiative of EMA and EORTC, with EHA as a founding member. It is a great forum EMA created to discuss how to better the bridge the gap that often exists between the regulatory label a drug gets after approval and the way how it is optimally used for individual patients.
The forum is unique as it includes so many different stakeholders, including patients, industry, HTA agencies and healthcare payers. It requires out of the box thinking and reflection on how joint solutions could be developed that suit not only one, but all stakeholders—making extremely exciting to work with!
You have represented EHA on EMA’s Healthcare Professionals’ Working Party (HCPWP). Why are routine exchanges with the regulator so valuable?
Regulators are the gatekeeper to medicines access for our patients, and the progress we have been witnessing in many hematological conditions has been testament to what an amazing job they are doing, especially in a European context with relatively limited resources and a lot of personal commitment.
That doesn’t mean that everything is perfect—but neither is academic medicine. I find it exciting to interact with the regulator to address legal or infrastructure limitations that influence certain decisions. More often than one thinks, getting out of one’s comfort zone can help one understand why some things are how they are and also stimulate collaborative thoughts and initiatives on how things could potentially be done better.
You’re about to rotate off the EAC, after a double term. What made this commitment worthwhile?
Joining the EAC is a great way to broaden one’s horizon. I joined as I had spent a lot of timing thinking about things I felt were not going well for patients in our healthcare systems, but found just complaining not an option.
The interaction with outstanding colleagues, but also with policy experts, gave me a lot of novel insights. Most importantly, the EAC provides an opportunity to openly and constructively discuss joint experiences, but also to develop ideas for improvement that have, through the committee’s links with regulators and policymakers, a chance to make an impact.