Building the future of health in Europe

Europe’s healthcare systems are among our greatest achievements. They are built on a simple promise: that people should receive the care they need, when they need it, wherever they live. But that promise is under increasing pressure.

Our populations are ageing. Chronic diseases are rising. Global supply chains are becoming more fragile. At the same time, scientific and technological progress is opening unprecedented opportunities to prevent, diagnose and treat disease. At the same time, scientific and technological advances are creating opportunities that were unimaginable only a decade ago when it comes to prevention, diagnosis and disease treatment. The question facing Europe is therefore not whether change is necessary. It is whether we can act quickly enough to shape that change ourselves.

This is why Europe’s priority must be to translate scientific excellence into innovation that reaches patients.

Turning Scientific Excellence into Innovation

Europe has no shortage of scientific talent. European researchers contribute around 21% of the world’s leading biotechnology publications. Our universities, hospitals and research institutes are among the best in the world. We have strong pharmaceutical manufacturing capabilities and a highly skilled workforce.

Yet we continue to face a fundamental challenge. Too often, scientific discoveries made in Europe are developed, financed, scaled and commercialised elsewhere. Over the last decade, biotechnology start-ups in the United States have attracted many times more venture capital than their European counterparts. Europe remains strong in discovery, but weaker in turning discoveries into globally competitive companies and products.

This is precisely why the Biotech Act is so important.

The Biotech Act is designed to make Europe a better place to develop, finance and scale biotechnology. It addresses barriers that innovators repeatedly identify: access to risk-tolerant capital, complex regulatory procedures, fragmented markets and difficulties in conducting clinical trials across multiple countries.

The Act seeks to simplify the environment for innovators, accelerate clinical trials, support the responsible use of artificial intelligence and strengthen Europe’s biotechnology ecosystem. 

Alongside the legislative proposal, we are already working with the European Investment Bank Group through the BioTechEU initiative to help unlock private and public investment in Europe’s biotechnology sector. Together, we aim to mobilise €10 billion over the coming years to support innovative companies as they scale up, expand manufacturing capacity and bring breakthrough technologies from the laboratory to the market.

The objective is clear: Europe should not only be a continent of scientific discovery. It should also be a continent where innovation grows, where companies scale, where manufacturing takes place and where patients benefit first from the breakthroughs that European science helps create. Europe has all the ingredients to lead this transformation. 

(A Modern Regulatory Framework for a New Era)

But innovation requires more than scientific excellence and investment. It also needs a regulatory environment that gives companies confidence to develop, test and launch new treatments in Europe. That means rules that are predictable, proportionate and fit for purpose, while fully safeguarding patient safety. Our reform of the EU pharmaceutical legislation is designed to create exactly those conditions.

The reform aims to make Europe’s regulatory framework faster, simpler and more efficient while maintaining the highest standards of quality, safety and efficacy. It supports timely access to medicines, strengthens incentives for innovation in areas of unmet medical need and embraces the opportunities offered by digital technologies and artificial intelligence.

Similarly, we are modernising the medical devices framework. Medical devices and diagnostics are no longer peripheral to healthcare. They are central to how we prevent, detect and treat disease. From early diagnosis and personalised medicine to remote monitoring and AI-supported clinical decision-making, they are transforming care pathways and helping health systems intervene earlier, more precisely and more effectively. 

Europe must remain a global leader in this field. Our objective is therefore to simplify procedures where possible, improve predictability for innovators and ensure that AI-based solutions, including medical devices, are supported by a coherent regulatory framework -accelerating access to breakthrough technologies while keeping patient safety at the heart of the system.

(The European Health Data Space: unlocking the power of data)

Data is becoming one of the defining assets of modern healthcare. The future of medical research, personalised medicine and artificial intelligence will depend increasingly on secure access to high-quality health data. This is why the European Health Data Space is such a transformative project.

For citizens, it will mean greater control over their own health information and easier access to their data across borders. For healthcare professionals, it will support better continuity of care and more efficient health systems. For researchers and innovators, it will open new opportunities to develop treatments, improve diagnostics and accelerate scientific progress.

It will also provide the trusted foundation Europe needs for the secondary use of electronic health data, including the development of artificial intelligence solutions in healthcare. By enabling secure and ethical access to high-quality datasets, we can support research and AI-based solutions that improve prevention, diagnosis and treatment, while maintaining citizens’ trust. That balance – between innovation and trust – is essential if Europe is to lead the next generation of healthcare technologies and make better, evidence-based policy decisions.

But technology must serve a wider purpose: helping people stay healthy, not only treating them once they become ill.

The same tools that can accelerate research and innovation can also help us detect risks earlier, personalise care and prevent disease before it advances.

(Prevention: the next frontier of health policy)

The real measure of innovation is not the technology itself, but the difference it makes to people’s lives. This is where Europe’s health agenda must now go further: using innovation not only to treat disease, but increasingly to prevent it and help Europeans live healthier lives for longer.

This shift is urgent. Europe cannot build sustainable healthcare systems simply by treating more disease. We must prevent more disease in the first place. Chronic conditions are already placing heavy pressure on citizens, healthcare professionals and public budgets. Cardiovascular diseases alone cause 1.7 million deaths every year in Europe and cost our economies more than €280 billion annually. Yet much of this burden can be avoided. Almost 80% of cardiovascular diseases are preventable.

This reality inspired the Safe Hearts Plan. The Plan seeks to transform cardiovascular health through prevention, earlier detection, screening, better use of data and more personalised approaches to risk prediction. It aims to transform cardiovascular health by strengthening prevention, improving early detection and screening, making better use of data, and supporting more personalised approaches to risk prediction and care.

It also reflects a wider shift in healthcare: from reacting to illness towards anticipating risk and intervening earlier. Digital tools, artificial intelligence, innovative diagnostics and better health data can all help drive this transformation. If we succeed, we will save lives. We will reduce pressure on healthcare systems. And we will create more space for continued investment in innovation.

Reducing preventable risk factors, including tobacco use, is also part of this shift – especially when it comes to protecting young people and lowering the future burden of cancer, cardiovascular disease and other chronic conditions.

Prevention and innovation must advance together. A Europe that prevents more disease will be stronger, more resilient and better able to invest in the next generation of care. It is our strategic vision for Europe’s future: a continent where scientific excellence becomes innovation, where innovation attracts investment, and where investment delivers real benefits for patients.

It is about ensuring that medicines remain available, that health systems remain resilient, that innovators choose Europe as a place to invest and grow, and that citizens continue to have access to the highest standards of care.

Europe has the science. Europe has the talent. Europe has the industrial base. Today, we are putting in place the regulatory, financial and policy tools needed to further improve their synergies. 

The challenge now is implementation.

If we maintain our ambition, work together across institutions and Member States, and continue to place patients at the centre of our efforts, Europe can remain not only a global leader in healthcare, but also a global model for how resilience, innovation and solidarity can work together.

Europe’s health agenda has entered a decisive phase. The Cyprus Presidency has demonstrated that ambitious progress is possible, delivering agreement on the Critical Medicines Act and advancing the Biotech Act at record speed. I am confident that the Irish Presidency, followed by the Lithuanian Presidency, will maintain this momentum. Together, we have a unique opportunity to complete the key building blocks of the European Health Union and create the conditions for Europe to remain a global leader in health innovation, resilience and patient care.