IFAPP is the INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF ASSOCIATIONS OF PHARMACEUTICAL PHYSICIANS
The Federation is a non-profit organisation and has existed since 1975. (For more information see History.) The aim of the Organisation is to act as an international forum for all the organisations of Pharmaceutical Physicians world-wide by dealing with matters brought to its attention by its National Member Associations. The IFAPP fosters the development and international recognition of Pharmaceutical Medicine as a medical specialty and the development of training and continuing education programmes in pharmaceutical medicine. It stimulates a closer relationship between the Member Associations and an improved understanding between the Associations and the medical and allied professionals, regulatory authorities etc. Every two to three years a National Member Association organises the International Conference on Pharmaceutical Medicine (ICPM). For future and past meetings see the section "conferences".
IFAPP counts today 28 national Member Associations: 16 located in Europe, 6 in Asia, 4 in America, one in Australia and one in South Africa. They represent a total of over 6500 individual members.
Its administration is composed of:
- the House of Delegates: 28 members (Delegates), one from each national Member Association (meets every 2 to 3 years)
- the Executive Committee: at least 14 Delegates (at least 50% of nMAs according to the IFAPP Constitution) elected by the House of Delegates each representing a different country (meets twice a year + 4 teleconferences/year)
- the Council for Education in Pharmaceutical Medicine: 30 members (8 teleconferences/year; occasional meetings)
- the Pharmaceutical Medicine Ethics Council: 5 core members and up to 20 associate members
- The Global Strategy Working Party: 5 core members and up to 20 associate members
The Executive Committee is:
- assisting the foundation of new national Associations of Pharmaceutical Physicians (PPs) in countries where such associations do not yet exist;
- promoting the recognition of pharmaceutical medicine (PM) as a new medical specialty;
- an international forum on all matters of interest to pharmaceutical physicians (PPs);
- promoting close interaction between Associations and with other medical and allied professions, regulatory authorities and international organisations;
- organising international conferences, seminars, courses such as
o the International Conferences on Pharmaceutical Medicine (ICPMs) every two years
o the European IFAPP conferences every year
o the IFAPP satellite symposia at each conference of the European Association of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (EACPT)
- assisting national Member Associations in the organisation of local pharmaceutical medicine events;
- publishing its newsletter "IFAPP World" two to three times a year;
- keeping up to date its informative and user friendly web site (http://www.ifapp.org/).
The Executive Committee is assisted by three sub-committees:
I. The Council for Education in Pharmaceutical Medicine (CEPM)
The Council was founded in 2001 with the following objectives:
1) to harmonise the content of the programmes of education in PM and to accredit those Postgraduate Courses in Pharmaceutical Medicine (PgCPMs) which comply with the syllabus established by IFAPP;
2) to assist Universities to establish additional PgCPMs;
3) to assist national Member Associations (nMAs) in establishing programmes of continued medical education and continued professional development (CME/CPD)
4) to promote the mutual recognition of Diplomas in Pharmaceutical Medicine awarded by the PgCPMs accredited by IFAPP;
5) to obtain the recognition of the title of Physician Specialist in Pharmaceutical Medicine internationally.
The Council counts 30 members who are those members of the nMAs interested in education and training. Most of them are participating in one or more of the 7 Working Groups (WG) of the Council.
The activities of the Council can be summarised as follows:
Objective 1: Harmonisation and accreditation of PgCPMs
Between 2002 and 2008 the Council has organised the visit and accreditation of 12 PgCPMs. All are located at European Universities (Barcelona, Basel, Belgrade, Brussels, Cardiff, Dublin, Duisburg-Essen, London-Surrey, Madrid and Stockholm) except two (University of Mexico, Federal University of São Paulo, Brazil). This programme is ongoing and further accreditations are expected in 2009 - 2010 in Buenos Aires, Lyons, Milan, Rome, San Francisco and Sydney).
Working Group I : The IFAPP syllabus for courses in PM is the benchmark on which the accreditation of PgCPMs is based. It is an essential tool in the process. WG I have the task to revise the syllabus when needed and to issue new up-to-date versions. The most current version is available on the IFAPP web site in the section "Education".
Objective 2: Assist in establishing additional PgCPMs
Since its foundation the Council has assisted in the establishment of several postgraduate courses in pharmaceutical medicine. Additional courses are being established or are currently in their first year such as at the Universities of Budapest, Milan, Rome, California, Sydney, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Singapore, Djakarta, Teijin.
Working Group II: This WG was specifically created in order to assist in the establishment of the PgCPM at the University of Budapest. The idea is to create a course for the Central European Area in cooperation with other Central European Universities such as Vienna, Prague and Belgrade.
Working Group III: The objective of WG III is to produce an international computerised interactive training course for clinical investigators. This course was set up in cooperation with the University of Brussels and is now available under the name of "E-Clin". The WG III remains responsible for the updating of the course on a yearly basis.
Objective 3: Assist in establishing national CME/CPD programmes
Establishing CME/CPD programmes for PPs is obviously a local responsibility and nMAs should give due diligence to this problem. The CEPM is prepared to assist wherever help is needed. In order to give some guidelines to the nMAs the CEPM set up WG IV.
Working Group IV: This WG wrote the "Guidance Notes for the establishment of Continued Medical Education/Continued Professional Development programmes in Pharmaceutical Medicine". These notes were circulated to all nMAs and are available on the IFAPP web site. Updated versions will be produced when appropriate.
Objective 4: Promote mutual recognition of Diplomas in PM
The objective is to obtain that the Universities whose PgCPM was accredited by IFAPP mutually recognise the equivalence of the Diplomas in Pharmaceutical Medicine they award to the students who passed successfully the examinations and/or assessments. This can only be obtained by bringing together the Directors of the PgCPMs. As most of the accredited PgCPMs are located in Europe, the CEPM decided to organise and sponsor a meeting of the Directors of the 13 PgCPMs currently running in Europe. The meeting took place on 7 June 2007 in Brussels and led to the foundation of the "European Federation of Courses in Pharmaceutical Medicine (EFCPM)" on 13 June 2008.
Objective 5: Promote the recognition of PM as a new medical specialty
Considering that Europe is losing in competitiveness versus the USA in terms of research and discovery of innovative medicines, the European Commission in cooperation with the EFPIA is setting up an "Innovative Medicines Initiative" (IMI) and a "Strategic Research Agenda" (SRA). The objective is to improve the predictivity of efficacy and safety of new compounds, to improve knowledge management and to improve the training and education of the professionals involved in pharmaceutical R&D, regulatory affairs, pharmacovigilance, etc. The latter objective is of great interest to PPs as it specifically mentions the need to recognise pharmaceutical medicine as a new medical specialty. The project involves the creation of a European Medicines Research Academy (EMRA) bringing together "centres of excellence" of each scientific discipline involved in R&D of new medicines. The objective of the CEPM is to cooperate in the frame of the Call no. 16 of the IMI project with the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine and the recently founded European Federation of Courses in PM (EFCPM) to improve and extend training and education in PM and to obtain the recognition of PM as a new medical specialty.
The Council counts three more WGs:
Working Group V: is in charge of producing a multilingual glossary English versus several Eastern European languages of medical terms used in pharmaceutical medicine.
Working Group VI: is in charge of communicating on the activities of the CEPM to the IFAPP Executive Committee, to the nMAs, to IFAPP World, the IFAPP newsletter. This WG is also responsible for updating the section "Education" on the IFAPP web site at regular intervals and to provide pertinent information on the CEPM activities for inclusion in that section.
Working Group VII: is in charge of enquiring about and keeping records of the number of certified pharmaceutical physicians issuing from the various PgCPMs in order to establish reliable statistics concerning the use of the PgCPMs by physicians and scientists working in or for the pharmaceutical and bio-pharmaceutical industry.
For further information on the CEPM please go to the section "Education". For personalised advice please write to the IFAPP Secretariat with the mention "To the attention of the Chairman of the CEPM".
II. The Pharmaceutical Medicine Ethics Council (PMEC)
IFAPP has recognised that there are ethical issues that are of particular relevance to pharmaceutical physicians. IFAPP believes that it has a responsibility to define and publish standards to which pharmaceutical physicians and health professionals can refer and may be measured against when dealing with ethical issues in the field of PM.
The PMEC has issued "IFAPP's International Code of Conduct for Pharmaceutical Physicians" (available on the IFAPP web site in the section "Ethics").
The Council is available, upon request, for advice on ethical matters relating to pharmaceutical medicine. All requests for advice should be addressed to the IFAPP Secretariat with the mention "To the attention of the Chairman of the PMEC.
Further information on the PMEC is available in the section "Ethics".
III. The Global Strategy Working Party (GSWP)
IFAPP is a growing global organisation with many countries, cultures and capital (people and wealth) depending on the maturity and size of the National Member Association.
IFAPP is facing Value, Visibility, Viability, Validity, Versatility and Volume challenges over the next decade.
IFAPP understands that the Pharmaceutical Medicine landscape is changing geographically, demographically and pharmaco-medico-graphically. This shift places the pharmaceutical physicians and health professional with major challenges. To address these difficulties, in their wisdom, the IFAPP Executives established the Global Strategic Working Party (June 2007).
The GSWP mandate or brief is to assist IFAPP explore options, implications, debate issues, track metrics and identify possible solutions so informed decisions and appropriate action are taken.
GSWP is facilitated by the ‘Synthesis of Ideas' Template and IFAPP's Strategy Process and other tools.
Ongoing projects: 1. Membership demographics survey, 2. Fund raising, 3. IFAPP World distribution, 4. IFAPP web site activation and 5. Business plan.
New projects include "Facing the Future" ongoing processes: 1. ICPM Branding,
2. Interaction with other associations, 3. Image of Pharmaceutical Medicine, 4. New regions, 5. IFAPP infrastructure, 6. nMAs' needs analysis.
The GSWP is available, upon request, for advice on global strategy matters relating to the IFAPP. All requests should be addressed to the IFAPP Secretariat with the mention "To the attention of the Chairman of the GSWP".
For more information please see the section "join us" or contact our secretariat:
IFAPP secretariat
Mrs Caroline van Bruggen
Kuipersweg 2T
3449 JA Woerden
The Netherlands
phone: +31 (0)348 489 305
fax: +31 (0)348 489 301
e-mail: secretariat@ifapp.org
web site: www.ifapp.org
