Last week in Brussels, the European Biosimilar medicines Group (EBG – a sector group of the EGA) elected its new leadership team with Sandoz’ Carol Lynch as Chair of the overall sector group and Polpharma’s Klaus Martin, Chair of the market access group of the EBG.

Carol Lynch is Global Head of Biopharmaceuticals and Oncology Injectables at Sandoz. Lynch has more than 25 years of global pharmaceutical and generics industry experience. Prior to joining Sandoz in 2014, Lynch held several Commercial and Development leadership positions at Novartis Pharmaceuticals both globally and in country organizations, including the United States. She is a member of the Sandoz Executive Committee.

In her new role as Chair of the EBG Group, Carol Lynch highlighted: “The EBG is the leading group in Europe for the biosimilars industry and as the newly elected Chair, I look forward to representing the EBG during what will be another important two years. With fellow EBG members, we will support the expansion of patient access to high-quality biosimilar medicines, while ensuring the sustainability of our industry in Europe and beyond”. Ildiko Aradi, Gedeon Richter, and Karl Heinz Emmert, Teva, were re-elected as Vice-chairs of the EBG.

Klaus Martin is Senior Director at Polpharma Biologics and Chief Science officer, leading global late-stage development, portfolio management and strategic marketing and medical affairs. Klaus has been working on biosimilar medicines since 2002. He has held global management positions at Sandoz Biopharmaceuticals and has been an active member of the EBG since Polpharma joined the EGA in 2014.

As the new Market Access Group Chair, Klaus Martin commented that “Biosimilar medicines are increasingly embraced by markets as an important means to provide better access for patients to better healthcare. However, there are still many barriers to patient access to biosimilar medicines which the EBG will work hard to remove over the next two years”. Dan Ionescu, Sandoz, was appointed Vice-chair of the Market Access Group.

EGA Director General, Adrian van den Hoven, welcomed the new leadership team which will continue leading the way on transforming healthcare, improving access to more safe high quality treatment options for physicians and their patients.

About the EBG and the EGA
The European Biosimilars Group (EBG), a sector group of the EGA, represents the leading companies in the biosimilar medicines space. The EBG Members bring competition to the biologicals market, thereby increasing access to highly innovative medical treatments to patients, in Europe and around the world, and supporting the sustainability of the European healthcare systems.

The EGA represents the European generic, biosimilar and value-added medicines industries, which provide high-quality cost-competitive medicines to millions of European patients. Companies represented within the EGA provide over 160,000 skilled, high value direct jobs in Europe. Without generic medicines, payers in Europe would have had to pay €100 BN more in 2014. Generic medicines account for 56% of all dispensed medicines but for only 22% of the pharmaceutical expenditure in Europe. The European generic, biosimilar and value-added medicines industries’ vision is to provide sustainable access to high quality medicines for all European patients, based on 5 important pillars: patients, quality, value, sustainability and partnership. For more information please visit: www.egagenerics.com and follow EGA and EBG on Twitter at:@egagenerics and @ebgbiosimilars.