Spain takes a key step forward with the new Regional Map and Observatory for Clinical Research in Primary Care
Both initiatives are a step forward in raising awareness of regional efforts to make clinical trials in health centres a common reality in our country.
Clinical research in primary care is an opportunity for patients and a key lever for the professional development of family doctors.
Barcelona hosts the 3rd National Conference on Clinical Research in Primary Care with more than 150 attendees and experts from all over Spain.
Olga Pané, consejera de Salud de Cataluña, y Fina Lladós, presidenta de Farmaindustria. | Fotos: Sonia Troncoso.
Farmaindustria.es
On Wednesday, Barcelona hosted the Third National Conference on Clinical Research in Primary Care, which brought together more than 150 attendees and nearly twenty expert speakers to analyse and share the opportunities that the promotion of clinical research, both in primary care (PC) and in health centres in coordination with hospitals.
Two years after Farmaindustria presented its Guide to Good Practice Recommendations for the Promotion of Clinical Research in Primary Care (ICAP Guide), the meeting served to share the main advances and initiatives carried out since then and to present the first Map and the first Observatory of clinical research in PC, which have been developed in collaboration with the seventeen autonomous communities in order to give visibility to the clinical research activity carried out over the last three years in health centres in our country.
Thus, the ICAP Map shows which health centres conduct clinical trials by autonomous community, how much space is allocated to research in these centres, how many projects they participate in, how many clinical trials they have underway, and at what stage they are. For its part, the ICAP Observatory analyses two of the recommendations from the ICAP Guide: the development of a specific autonomous community strategy for research in primary care and the digitisation, integration of real-life data and decentralised elements in primary care, key areas for the development of clinical trials that will enable more centres and patients to participate in research.
Both projects —which are living documents that are constantly updated based on the information shared by the autonomous regions— ‘are a major step forward in determining the exact status of clinical research in primary care in our country. They are intended to be ongoing and are the result of the efforts made by all the autonomous regions to complete the information and provide a national overview,’ as explained by Amelia Martín Uranga, Director of Clinical and Translational Research at Farmaindustria.
Accompanying both documents, a new annex to the ICAP Guide for Document Management for the Initiation of Clinical Trials with Medicines in Primary Care has been published, based on the recommendations issued by the Spanish Medicines Agency (Aemps) in the document containing instructions for conducting clinical trials in Spain, to facilitate the extension of trials to any health centre that meets the established requirements.
“Two years ago, we presented our guide to good practices for promoting clinical research in primary care. Since then, we have seen how that document has gone from being a working proposal to becoming a real roadmap that has served as a lever to inspire managers, regional officials, healthcare professionals, patients, researchers and the pharmaceutical industry to promote clinical trials in primary care,” said Farmaindustria President Fina Lladós Canela at the inauguration.
‘We are proud to say that today we are achieving the milestones we set,’ she added, noting that the guide has marked a turning point for clinical research in primary care. ‘We must not forget that increasing collaborative trials between levels of care is an opportunity to continue strengthening Spain’s role as a preferred location for conducting international clinical research with drugs,’ she recalled.
Above all, ‘we must not forget that research in healthcare centres brings clinical trials closer to patients, promotes equity and improves the quality of these studies, an area in which we are working intensively at Farmaindustria, through this and other key tools, such as the use of decentralised elements, the promotion of diversity and digitalisation,’ Lladós stressed.
Josep Basora (Cataluña), Galo Peralta (Cantabria), Manuel Ruiz de Ocenda (La Rioja), Oana Bulilete (Baleares), Amelia Martín Uranga (Farmaindustria), Carmen de Vicente (Andalucía) y Eva Suárez (Comunidad Valenciana).
Farmaindustria.es
Need for public investment
The promotion of research in health centres is also part of the 2025-2027 Primary and Community Care Action Plan and the 2024-2028 Pharmaceutical Industry Strategy, which has a clear objective: to make Spain a leader in biomedical research and a magnet for talent, innovation and investment. To achieve this, ‘we need strong primary care, integrated into research and recognised for its ability to generate knowledge,’ added the president of Farmaindustria. Therefore, these advances must be accompanied by public investment to provide health centres with the infrastructure and resources to undertake clinical trials and attract more investment from pharmaceutical companies.
In addition to all of the above, as Martín Uranga has pointed out, bringing clinical trials to health centres at this time is a stimulus for primary care health professionals, “for whom specific training is being developed, in collaboration with scientific societies, Aemps, ethics committees, the pharmaceutical industry, nursing, researchers and patients, which will enable them to expand their knowledge and apply their talent to improving patient health and the quality of care in the healthcare system”. Because research is a key lever for the professional development of family doctors, their training and motivation to offer the best care to their patients.
The Catalan Minister of Health, Olga Pané, also participated in the opening of the conference, stating that ‘conducting clinical research in primary care is about knowledge and retaining talent, but above all it is about providing solutions to real problems’, since, as she pointed out, Spanish health centres treat 60 million patients a year. And to find solutions to ‘enormous challenges, such as ageing and climate change, strong and loyal collaboration between the public and private sectors is necessary,’ said Pané.
Specifically, in Catalonia, the Committee for Evaluation, Innovation, Operational Reform and Sustainability of the Health System (Cairos), part of the region’s Department of Health, has included the transformation of primary care among its proposals. Among its first actions, a selection of 27 primary care teams has been made to begin applying the new model of Comprehensive Reference Health Centres (CSIR), as real testing and learning spaces to reform primary care from within, with autonomy, innovation and accountability, according to Councillor Pané.
Within the framework of this new model, Farmaindustria is collaborating with Cairos on a proposal to consolidate a structured network of clinical research with medicines in primary care, thereby giving more patients in Catalonia access to clinical trials.
As was made clear during the conference, clinical research in primary care is not only a strategic objective, but also a real opportunity to transform the healthcare system, improve patients’ lives, recognise the scientific value of healthcare professionals working at this level of care, and is also one of the main strategies for turning Spain into one of the major biomedical research hubs in Europe.
