Joanna Kozakou is new president of KEFEA Cyprus

Joanna Kozakou, Operations Manager of Sanofi, has assumed the position of President of the Cyprus Association of Research and Development Pharmaceutical Companies (KEFEA), following the departure of Daan Gijbels from Cyprus who will undertake a new position as Area Director of GlaxoSmithKline in Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Thanking Gijbels for his valuable contribution, the new president underlined that among KEFEA’s priorities for the immediate future is the implementation of KEFEA’s revised Code of Practice on the Promotion of Medicinal Products to Healthcare Professionals.
The revised Code outlines, among others, stricter provisions on the interaction between medical representatives and healthcare professionals, the promotion of prescription medicines, the availability of samples and promotional material as well as the hosting of healthcare professionals during scientific events.
As Kozakou noted, the new Code ensures that medicines are promoted to healthcare professionals in a transparent and honest fashion, without deception and in accordance with the law’s provisions. She added that its adoption by the pharmaceutical companies will significantly benefit patients, healthcare professionals and the pharmaceutical industry overall.
In the immediate future, KEFEA will host a special event aimed at presenting the new Code in the presence of important personalities from the health sector.
Ioannis Kouis, Country Manager of Novartis, has been appointed as KEFEA’s vice president.
KEFEA was founded in 2006 as the representative body for multinational pharmaceutical companies in Cyprus and is a member of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA) and the Employers and Industrialists Federation (OEB). KEFEA’s members are GSK, Lilly, MSD, Novartis, Pfizer, Sanofi and Amgen Hellas.
www.kefea.org.cy