Areas of activity
The Medical Research Agency (MRA) was founded in order to improve the use of potential for development of medical research and health sciences, particularly in the scope of non-commercial clinical research that now constitute about 2 percent of all the registered trials in Poland. For comparison, in Western European countries the ratio amount to about 40 percent. The Agency aims at increasing the percentage of non-commercial clinical research to the level of 20-30 percent.
The main goals of non-commercial clinical research development shall include searching for new methods of treatment in the most pressing areas of medicine: oncology and cardiology, and also in the area of rare diseases, as often they are outside the area of interest of private companies. Ensuring the patients with oncology, cardiac and rare diseases the opportunity to participate in clinical research is essential for the whole health care system. In the future it will result in an access to modern medications or in lowering the costs of treatment of particular diseases.
The research conducted by the MRA will be used to assess effectiveness and safety of medications and technologies that have already been on the market, but also to withdraw the technologies that are no longer effective. Verification of effectiveness of the selected technologies in the conditions of the Polish health care system will make it easier for the bodies responsible for reimbursement and tariff setting to arrive at decisions in this area.
The Agency will also support development of population-based and epidemiological studies in various areas of public health. The collected data will be used to prepare expert analyses that will define the causes of various incidence of particular diseases or of mortality ratios due to selected diseases in individual regions of Poland. Those analyses will be based on own, national research, not on general statistics, as before.
The Agency's core task will be to ensure proportional funding for medical sciences and health sciences in all the relevant areas:
- basic research,
- research and development actions,
- clinical research on medicinal products and medical devices,
- epidemiological studies,
- studies on management,
- development and optimisation of health care system.