News

Syreon Research Institute is dedicated to promoting evidence-based health policy in developing countries. To explore research opportunities in Africa our team recently had a 10-day visit to Accra, Ghana. Thanks to our long-term relationship with former students, we were able to attend several meetings with a wide range of local experts, organize a scientific symposium and explore the opportunities for establishing an African research unit. 

After a two-year hiatus, Syreon Research Institute held its first hybrid strategic day since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the day-long meeting, our colleagues from junior level to the senior leadership discussed together some of the major changes the institute has gone through over these past two years and determined some of the upcoming developments and challenges Syreon will face over the next few years.

Syreon Research Institute and Syreon Middle East are proud to provide the webinar platform and scientific content to the Summit and Training for Excellence in clinical Pharmacy Systems (STEPS). STEPS is an educational program with the partnership of Bayer and the Ministry of Health and Prevention - United Arab Emirates aiming to facilitate capacity building in health economics to the UAE.

Pharmacoepidemiology research addresses a variety of non-interventional studies measuring the utilisation and effects of healthcare interventions used in accordance with normal clinical practice in the human population. As part of the newly established Central and Eastern European Pharmacoepidemiology Data Research Group (CEEPHE DRG), Syreon Research Institute signed a framework contract for pharmacoepidemiology research for the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in the next 4 years. The research group, coordinated by Syreon, includes partners from the Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia.

Syreon Research Institute is pleased to welcome László Nagy in the position of Director of Strategic Operations. László trained at the Medical University Pecs, the Southwestern Medical School Dallas and the Stockholm Schools of Economics and has worked for 29 years at MSD in various leadership positions. In his last position, before joining Syreon, he was Director of Market Access (Europe & Canada).

Ivett Jakab, our colleague and Patient Policy Research Unit lead has become the president of the European Patients' Forum Youth Group a reference group of the young patient community, aged 15-29, whose patient representatives come from all over Europe with different chronic conditions. Their role is to communicate the needs and expectations of young patients to European Patients' Forum and its members. 

A systematic review entitled "Potential Criteria for Frameworks to Support the Evaluation of Innovative Medicines in Upper Middle-Income Countries" aimed to facilitate the development of future MCDA frameworks, by proposing a set of criteria focusing on the purchasing decisions of single-source innovative pharmaceuticals in upper middle-income countries. 

Syreon researchers, Zoltán Vokó and János G. Pitter investigated the effect of social distance measures on COVID-19 epidemics in European countries and published their results in the Geroscience journal. Their analysis revealed that the unprecedented ‘stay-at-home” national policies meaningfully contributed to the suppression of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe, which can be detected in a macro level time trend analysis. 

Tamas Agh, Zoltan Voko, Blanca Gros, Trevor Bacon, and Marcell Csanadi were selected among the best 3 poster presentations at ISPOR’s 22th Annual European Congress in Copenhagen. Title of the presentation was: ESTIMATING THE NUMBER OF PATIENTS WITH CHRONIC GRAFT-VERSUS-HOST DISEASE ACROSS EUROPE (PCN261) 

Syreon Research Institute presents 7 posters at the ISPOR 22th Annual European Congress in Copenhagen.

“In oncology care, building the appropriate infrastructure and feasible budgets for effective treatment options are important but insufficient health policy investments alone. Patient path management is a promising approach to ensure timely and rational use of available diagnostic and treatment options, resulting in better health and patient experience."

We proudly announce that our young researcher Ms Ivett Jakab has been elected Vice-President of European Patients Forum Youth Group. Congratulations!  

Congratulations to Mr Bertalan Nemeth, senior health economist of Syreon Research Institute for being elected ISPOR CEE president for the 2021-2023 cycle. Great job!

Collaborators of Syreon Research Institute, University of Colorado, ELTE University and Semmelweis University released a book on “The role of modelling in economic evaluations in health care”.

Results of the SELFIE project were presented at the final conference on June 13 in the Eye Film Museum, Amsterdam. SELFIE was a four-year EU-funded Horizon2020 project coordinated by Prof. Dr. Maureen Rutten-van Mölken and her team at the Erasmus School of Health Policy and Management. 

We proudly announce the launching of the HEcoPerMed (Healthcare- and pharma-economics in support of the International Consortium for Personalised Medicine – ICPerMed) project in which Syreon Research Institute is the leader of the 2nd work package.

We proudly announce the launching of the VITAL (Vaccines and InfecTious diseases in the Ageing popuLations) project in which Syreon Research Institute is a contributor to 3 work packages. The €12.4 million project – funded by IMI and EFPIA – will run from 2019-2023 under the scientific leading of University Medical Center (UMC) Utrecht. VITAL will address – in a public-private consortium – the challenges of infections in the elderly and the potential of infection prevention by vaccination. 

Syreon Research Institute, as a proud member of the HTx Project Consortium, led by Utrecht University, is delighted to announce the launch of a new HTA project under the European call BETTER HEALTH AND CARE, ECONOMIC GROWTH AND SUSTAINABLE HEALTH SYSTEMS, which will operate in Europe for the coming five years, 2019 – 2023.

SRI celebrated the 10th anniversary of its establishment in October, 2018. For this occcasion leaders of Syreon Corporation, Syreon Middle East and Syreon Romania joined the special event.

Syreon Research Institute presents 17 posters, 2 workshops and 1 short course at the ISPOR 21th Annual European Congress in Barcelona.

In September the EU-TOPIA H2020 team organized the second workshop for cancer screening experts in Malmö. During the workshop we tested the evaluation tool developed by Erasmus Medical Center by which we will evaluate the organized screening programmes in European countries. We also introduced the barrier assessment tool to be used in the third workshop in 2019 April.

On the following link a detailed summary about the SELFIE H2020 project activities can be found. The newsletter provides an update on the SELFIE related publications and summarizes what we have achieved so far.

After the kick off meeting in January 2018 in Milan, the first consortium meeting was held in September 2018 in Hamburg, Germany which included contributions from of Antal Zemplényi, János Pitter and Rita Bendes. 

The European Patients' Forum (EPF) organised the second Summer Training Course for Young Patient Advocates in Vienna (Austria) from 1 to 4 July, 2018.

Prof. Jonathan D. Campbell, Associate Professor from University of Colorado spent his sabbatical leave at Syreon Research Institute (from January to June 2018). Jon worked with the members of the Syreon team on methodology and policy-related research, mostly in the field of health technology assessment.

The Syreon team was pleased to organize the latest SELFIE H2020 consortium meeting in Budapest at the end of May. We had a two-day event  where we discussed the progress in the evaluation of the selected European integrated care programs. We also had  the opportunity to show our beautiful city to our partners. 

In April the EU-TOPIA H2020 team had another consortium meet up, this time in Malmö. We planned the second EU-TOPIA workshop, which will be held in September. Along with screening experts from Europe, we are working towards better cancer screening.

A new video was coming up about the aims and action of SELFIE project, a research on integrated chronic care (ICC) for individuals with multi-morbidity, explaining them in an easily comprehensible way. 

SRI, as a member of the COMED consortium, led by Bocconi University, was granted an EU Horizon 2020 research funding for the period of 2018-2020. 

ELTE University (Budapest, Hungary) is pleased to announce full-time and part-time schedule MSc programmes in Health Policy, Planning and Financing (Specialization in Health Economics).

The second EU-TOPIA H2020 consortium meeting of 2017 was held in the Hague, the Netherlands which included contributions from György Széles, Zoltán Vokó, and Marcell Csanadi. The experience of the 1^st EU-TOPIA Workshop, which was held in Budapest in October, was discussed during the meeting.

The second SELFIE H2020 consortium meeting of 2017 was held in Bergen, Norway which included contributions from János Pitter, Antal Zemplényi, and Marcell Csanadi. The 4-year project reached important milestones in visibility as two SELFIE papers were recently published in Health Policy.

Our colleague László Szilberhorn was selected as one of the best 3 podium presentations in the student category at ISPOR’s 20th Annual European Congress in Glasgow. 

Syreon Research Institute presents 7 posters 5 presentations and 1 short course at the ISPOR 20th Annual European Congress in Glasgow

Are you involved in policy or financing of health- and/or social care? We’re interested in what you find important when it comes to integrated care for persons with multi-morbidity.

Both of our currently running Horizon2020 projects (SELFIE, EU-TOPIA) received public attention by an initiative called “Winning Hungarians” 

The Syreon running team was formed to support the sport opportunities of transplanted patients. Donations for this purpose are welcomed on the link below. The enthusiastic team will attend the biggest Hungarian running event this June.

The Syreon team successfully hosted the fourth face-to-face consortium meeting of EU-TOPIA H2020 project. A major part of the meeting was organized around the EU-TOPIA Workshop 1 – Monitoring event will also be organized in Budapest in September 2017.
Promotion video of Workshop 1 is also available

Zoltán Kaló has been invited to the Scientific Committee of the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking (IMI2 JU).

Professor Zoltán Kaló is nominated for ISPOR presidency, being the first ever candidate from the Central and Eastern European region.

Professor Zoltán Vokó and professor Zoltán Kaló successfully held the HTA and Biostatistics winter courses in 2017 January. 

„Thick description reports” are available on the SELFIE website. These reports describe promising integrated care programmes for persons with multi-morbidity in each of the 8 SELFIE partner countries, including Hungary (coordinated by Syreon).

Prof. Lou Garrison the serving president of ISPOR met the Hungarian ISPOR chapter in Budapest and also visited the Syreon Office. Professor Garrison also participated in the Advisory Board meeting of the Department of Health Policy and Health Economics at ELTE University (Department of Health Policy and Health Economics).

A one-day Health Economic symposium on "Sustainable health care" was held by ELTE University. Guest presenters: Martin McKee (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine), Lou Garrison (University of Washington), Ansgar Hebborn (Roche Pharmaceuticals), Ron Akehurst (University of Sheffield) and Paul Keown (University of British Columbia). ELTE University presenters

Syreon proposed methodology to develop new Essential Medicine List (EML) in Ukraine. Also tailored training programs in HTA methods were ran during a 6-month project between April and October 2016. The USAID funded Systems for Improved Access to Pharmaceuticals and Services (SIAPS) program intends to assure the availability of quality pharmaceutical products and effective pharmaceutical services to achieve desired health outcomes in Ukraine.

The Romanian National Conference of Pharmacoeconomics and Healthcare Management was held on 6-9 October, 2016 in Targu Mures, in association with ISPOR Romanian Chapter. The event hosted over 200 participants both from the pharma industry and public healthcare with a focus on specific health care issues in Romania. SRI presentations were held by András Inotai PhD and dr. László Lorenzovici.

Syreon in collaboration with ISPOR Hungary Chapter will re-launch HTA short courses in January 2017. Find more information and apply here.

The "Vicechancellor's Excellence Prize" of ELTE University was granted to prof. Zoltan Kalo, prof. Zoltan Voko and dr. Balazs Nagy. The prize is given to lecturers for their high standard research, educational and social activity.

The second newsletter was published about the progress that consortium members made in the SELFIE project. We’re nearing the one-year mark and have found this past year to be busy, successful, challenging, and above all – inspirational!

A summary about Hungarian workshops held within the SELFIE project consortium was posted on SELFIE H2020 website.

From more than 170 presentations Prof. Zoltan Kalo was awarded third prize on ‘IME Presentation Awards 2015. Also Prof. Zoltan Voko and Andras Inotai won second prizes on the first and second days of the VII- National Health Economics Conference and Training , respectively.

This year's Syreon Basketball Championship was won by Marcell Csanadi while Tamas Zelei (2nd) and Andras Inotai (3rd) finished on the podium.

Starting November 2015 SRI our institute will operates in a new office building, which provides larger in- and outdoor space to the rising number of colleagues. 

Zoltan Voko, Andras Inotai and Marcell Csanadi participated at CNFMS 2015 Conference, co-organised by Laszlo Lorenzovici (CEO of Syreon Research Romania), in Tirgu Mures (Marosvásárhely) between 13-15 October 2015. The conference provided a great opportunity to discuss health policy and health economics related issues between policymakers, researchers and health providers.

The kick-off meeting of the SELFIE H2020 project consortium (SRI is a collaborator) was held in Rotterdam, 31 August - 1 September 2015.

Zoltán Kaló, Balázs Nagy and Ahmad Fasseh held successful modules (26th July - 25th August) on "Economic Evaluations" and "Economic Modelling" at the Arab Academy for Science, Health Economic Diploma 2015.

János G. Pitter has been elected a member of the leadership group of the ISPOR Nutrition Economics Special Interest Group.

SRI contributed with 5 podium presentations and 1 poster presentation. to the 9th Conference of the Hungarian Health Economics Association (24-25th June, 2015, Budapest) organized by ISPOR Hungary Chapter. Zoltán Kaló organized and moderated the international session on “Equity and affordability in the treatment of hepatitis”.

János G. Pitter held a presentation at the 11th European Symposium of the International Association of Food Protection on Food Safety in Cardiff, Wales, 20-22 April 2015. Title: "Need for reliable disease burden estimates to support food safety decision making: the example of human campylobacteriosis in the European Union".

Horizon 2020 research funding was granted to SRI for the 2015-2019 time period, as a member of the SELFIE consortium, led by Erasmus Universitair Medisch Centrum Rotterdam. The project aims to improve patient-centred care for patients with multi-morbidity by proposing evidence-based, economically sustainable integrated chronic care (ICC) models that stimulate cooperation across health and social care sectors and are supported by appropriate financing/payment schemes.

Horizon 2020 research funding was granted to SRI for the 2015-2020 time period, as a member of the EU-TOPIA consortium, led by Erasmus Universitair Medisch Centrum Rotterdam. The objective of project, is to systematically evaluate and quantify the harms and benefits of the running programmes for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer in all European countries, and identify ways to improve health outcomes and equity for citizens.

Zoltan Kalo, Adriana Zsolyom, Laszlo Szilberhorn and Andras Inotai participated in a HE Conference co-organised by Laszlo Lorenzovici (CEO of Syreon Research Romania), in Tirgu Mures (Marosvásárhely) between 18-20 November 2014. The congress was considered a milestone towards spreading and exchanging HE knowledge in Romania. 

Tamás Ágh has been elected a member of the leadership group of the ISPOR Multiple Medication Adherence Measurement Working Group (Medication Adherence and Persistence Special Interest Group)

A handbook on Patient Reported Outcomes (PROs) has been recently published including the contributions of SRI colleagues. Co-edited by András Inotai, Kornélia Lovas and Zoltán Kaló, this handbook is the first Hungarian language book addressing exclusively the field of patient reported outcomes, health related quality of life, medical adherence, utility theorem, measurement of utilities, values and preferences, QALY and DALY concept and their critics.

The following posters were coauthored by SRI colleagues at ISPOR 17th Annual European Congress, Amsterdam: Occurrence, survival and annual cost of colorectal-, breast-, prostate and lung cancer in Hungary, Implications of external price referencing of pharmaceuticals in Middle East Countries...

Zoltan Kalo (CEO) held a presentation at the first plenary session of ISPOR 17th Annual European Congress, Amsterdam, with title: „Creating sustainable health systems in Europe”. He also contributed to two Issue Panels: 1) „Success criteria of generic and biosimilar drug policies: not as easy as it looks”; 2) „Is there room for multi-criteria decision making in Central and Eastern European Countries with severe financial constraints?”.

Syreon Research Institute was represented by Gergő Merész on the Budapest Business Intelligence forum of 26th November 2014 with a presentation titled „Coauthor networks: beyond citations”. 

Syreon Research Institute was represented by Gergő Merész on the Hungarian Natural Language Processing Meetup of 26th September 2014 with a presentation titled „Analysing scientometric data to relevate publication activity and coauthor networks”. 

SRI was represented by Prof. Zoltán Vokó at the national conference of the Hungarian Association of Public Health Training and Research Institutions on 27th August, 2014 with a presentation entitled “Cost-effectiveness of the introduction of a risk stratified population screening for type 2 diabetes in Hungary”.

Zoltán Vokó is a graduate of Semmelweis University of Medicine, Budapest (MD, 1994) Erasmus University Rotterdam (MSc in epidemiology, 1996; PhD in epidemiology, 2000). In 2003 he got his license in preventive medicine and public health, and habilitated at the University of Debrecen in 2004. He worked as a trainee in neurology in 1994-1997 at the National Stroke Centre in Budapest, and later as an academic researcher.

Syreon Research Institute was represented by Gergő Merész on the Budapest Users of R Network Meetup of 16th July 2014 with a presentation titled „Depicting the spatial arrangement of clinical trial sites”. The presentation (Hungarian) and the code (R) used for his analysis.

Syreon Research Institute was represented in the ISPOR 19th Annual International Meeting in Montreal. Zoltan Kalo, CEO of Syreon participated in an Issue Panel (Austerity measures versus early access to innovative treatment: how to strike a balance between patients' needs and budget availabilities?), and four posters were presented

SRI joined to European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing B3 Action Group on Integrated Care network

Zoltán Kaló joined Eötvös Loránd University in 2006, he is a program director of postgraduate and short courses and was an Associate Professor until his appointment as Professor of Health Economics in February 2014. He founded Syreon Research Institute in 2008 and has been serving Syreon as CEO since then. In 2012 members of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) elected him as a Director of ISPOR for a two year period.

SRI is now a recognized research entity by EUROSTAT Our Institute was recently recognized as a research entity by EUROSTAT, and granted access to micro-level European data for research purposes.

SRI colleagues contributed to 1 forum presenation, 1 podium presentation, 1 workshop and 5 poster presentations at the 16th Annual European Congress (2-6th November, 2013, Dublin, Ireland) organised by ISPOR.

Andras Inotai was elected the President (2014-2015) of ISPOR Chapter Hungary. Tamás Ágh was elected member of Board of Supervison member (2014-2016) of ISPOR Chapter Hungary. Zoltán Kaló was elected as a Board member (2014-2015) in the ISPOR Chapter Hungary.

As a member of an international consortium led by Brunel University (London) Syreon Research Institute successfully applied for a project in the 7th Framework Programme of the European Commission. The project entitled European Study on Quantifying the Utility of Investment of Protection from Tobacco (EQUIPT) is to commence in October and last over the next three years. 

SRI participated successfully at the 7nd National Health Economic Congress (19-20th June, 2013, Budapest) organised by ISPOR Hungary Chapter. SRI employees contributed in 4 podium presentations and 4 poster presentations. The international session was organised and moderated by Zoltán Kaló.

Prize-winning publication: Ágh T, Mészáros Á. Adherence to therapy in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. In: Kian-Chung Ong (ed.). Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease-Current Concepts and Practice. InTech, Rijeka, 2012:275-290. ISBN:978-953-51-0163-5

Prize winning article: Nagy B et al.: Health economic modell to assess the screening, treatment and management strategies of diabetes. [in Hungarian] Diabetologia Hungarica, 2012. 20.4 p.245-255.

Researchers from SRI participated in the 3rd Adriatic pharmacoeconomic Congress on Brijuni Island, Croatia, 25th – 27th April 2013. Apart from organizing a pre-congress training course on the implementation of evidence based health policies in lower income European economies.

03-2013 - András Inotai has been elected to the Co-editor position of the ISPOR Central-Eastern European Newsletter.

Zoltán Kaló and Gergő Merész held a successful health economic modelling course at the Arab Academy for Science, Health Economic Diploma programme.

In 2012, researchers of SRI published 23 peer-reviewed full text scientific papers (15 English-language papers and 8 papers in Hungarian). See more on Publications

Andras Inotai was elected as Vice President for International Affairs in the ISPOR Hungary Chapter.

Zoltán Kaló was elected to the position of 2012-2014 Director on the ISPOR Board of Directors

The new Hungarian checklist for critical appraisal of economic evaluations in reimbursement dossiers was published in Open Access journal BMC Health Service Research by Inotai A, Pékli M, Jóna G, Nagy O, Remák E, and Kaló Z. See more on Publications.

The Health Economics Research Centre of Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE) in collaboration with ISPOR Hungary Chapter organized a summer university course in June 2012. As the feedback of participants was highly positive, the ’Implementation of Health Technology Assessment in Central-Eastern European Countries’ summer university course will be repeated in June 2013.