Danish Medicines Agency's top priorities in 2020

08 January 2020

A data-driven medicines agency, the continued supply of medicines, a great place to work and productivity and quality are the top priorities for the Danish Medicines Agency in 2020.

A new year has begun, and the Danish Medicines Agency has lined up its top priorities. New technology and data must benefit the public and patients, the continued supply of medicines must remain in focus, and the Danish Medicines Agency must be a great place to work and a productive authority that serves society.

A data-driven medicines agency – and one of the first data analytics centers in Europe

In just a few years, the development in medical treatment has changed significantly. As individuals we are surrounded by health technology that is getting more and more advanced and integrates artificial intelligence, apps and algorithms, etc. While it gives us new possibilities of developing medical treatments that are more effective and tailored to the individual person’s needs, it also introduces new data protection requirements.

The Danish Medicines Agency’s activities are already based on data, but the developments in data applications, artificial intelligence and big data are accelerating fast. The Danish Medicines Agency's vision is for data to be used on a much larger scale for the benefit of people and patient safety, also in the collaboration with other EU countries and other relevant countries in the world in the pharmaceutical area. In 2020, we will work systematically in this area, not least via our new Data Analytics Center (DAC), which will use data analyses of pharmaceutical safety and efficacy and medical devices to set new standards for the development. DAC is expected to open officially at a symposium in the first half of 2020.

The continued supply of medicines

Lately, we have seen a rise in supply failure incidents both in Denmark and abroad. In the past six months, there has been strong public awareness on the supply of medicines and access to information related thereto. The Danish Medicines Agency has therefore chosen to give the continued supply of medicines the maximum level of attention by giving it top priority.

The Danish Medicines Agency will also be strengthening its collaboration with both national and international players in the area to find long-term solutions to prevent shortages of medicines that are critically important for the treatment of patients and improve the information about supply failure incidents as they arise.

A great place to work

How do we retain skilled employees and recruit new people to handle tomorrow’s tasks and challenges? This is also among our top priorities in 2020.

When we launched our vision of becoming one of Europe’s best in class in 2016, we knew from the start that the only way to achieve this was through employees who are motivated by a great place to work. Ever since we set this vision, we have concentrated our efforts to strengthen management and staff through various initiatives and to establish a common understanding of what makes a great place to work – including ongoing competence development, flexible working conditions and community. This work will continue in 2020.

Productivity and quality

Finally, a key theme in 2020 will be to further optimise the Danish Medicines Agency’s work processes to create even more value for society. In 2020, we will go into more detail with the optimisation of our work processes in all areas of the Danish Medicines Agency – and particularly the processes following from the new EU regulations on medical devices and clinical trials, etc. Implementing lean will continue to be in focus.