The statistics surrounding Europe's ageing population are by now well-trodden. All too often, however, debates and discussions are stuck in the language of generalities.

The financial, healthcare and societal implications of the cost of treatment for the ageing population will be profound in their impact. But we need specifics: we need to know whether such spending is, as sometimes claimed, an investment; whether it is a moral imperative; or whether it is a simply cost.

Dr Gisela Kobelt, a leading expert on health economics, will present her latest findings by putting one specific example - a cost/benefit analysis of rheumatoid arthritis treatment - into this general context of the debate surrounding ageing and its health and socio-economic consequences.

	2004: CNE Healthy Ageing Conference
	2007: Europe's Coming Demographic Challenge: Unlocking the Value of Health

Gisela Kobelt is the founder and president of European Health Economics SAS. She is the author of an introductory guide to economic evaluation for non-specialists that is now available in several languages. Since 2003, she has organized and directed an annual intensive training course Health Economics of Pharmaceuticals and other Medical Interventions in Southern France. Previously, she was course director of the executive course in "Strategic Health Economics" at the Stockholm School of Economics.

Dr Kobelt created and headed the Health Economics department at Sandoz (now Novartis) in Basel (Switzerland). She holds a Master's degree from the University of Strasbourg (France), an MBA from the Institute for Management Development (IMD/IMEDE) in Lausanne (Switzerland) and a PhD in Health Economics from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm (Sweden).

Maarten de Wit is EULAR Vice President representing people with arthritis/rheumatism in Europe. He has been active in organisations of patients with rheumatic diseases at local, national and international levels for many years. He was involved in the Dutch Steering Committee of the Bone and Joint Decade from 1999 till 2005. He is currently responsible for scientific research and international contacts within the Dutch Arthritis Patient League. In OMERACT (bi-annual conference on "Outcome Measurement in Reumatology Clinical Trials") as well as other international projects he has been actively involved in promoting patient participation in scientific research.

In 2006 he founded Tools2use, a non profit corporation, based in the Netherlands, aiming at increasing the competences of patient advocates. Maarten studied Social Sciences at the University of Amsterdam and worked as a HRM consultant and company trainer. Maarten has experienced psoriatic arthritis for over 25 years and has therefore a personal as well as professional outlook on the condition. Since 2002 he has been successfully treated with a new generation of disease modifying drugs also known as "biologicals".