The French Minister for Solidarity and Health, Olivier Véran, the French Minister Delegate for Industry, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, as well as the Commissioner for Health, Stella Kyriakides, and the Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, took part in a ministerial conference on Thursday 3 March at the Parisanté Campus entitled “For an independent, competitive and innovative Europe of Health”.
In cooperation with 16 Member States, the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union announces its intention to build an industrial cooperation around the health industries and signs a “Manifesto towards a Health IPCEI”.
IPCEIs, Important Projects of Common European Interest, are mechanisms to foster innovation in areas of strategic importance to the EU through transnational European projects.
The Health IPCEI is being launched to address two issues.
On the one hand, the treatment revolution and, on the other, the emergence of major health risks that can have global repercussions, such as antibiotic resistance. The manifesto welcomes the launch of several health initiatives at European level such as the Beating Cancer Plan, the establishment of HERA and Health Europe, and states the need to go further without redundancy.
The political will is to encourage investment in highly innovative and strategic projects led by European health industries in order to improve the quality of and access to care for patients in Europe.
The French Presidency and its European partners have drawn up a phased timetable in two waves for the implementation of this ‘Health IPCEI’ in order to accommodate the largest number of European states.
A first wave of pre-notifications to the European Commission will be made under the French Presidency, with a first round of pre-notifications for June 2022 and a second round for October 2022. This first wave will cover three themes: - the development of innovative and greener manufacturing processes and innovation in strategic areas such as the fight against antibiotic resistance; - the development of treatments for rare diseases as well as the development of treatments for future pandemics; - the development of gene and cell therapies. The aim is to select, from among the health topics, those that have the highest priority and the greatest collective impact, said Agnès Pannier-Runacher.
A second wave of pre-notifications will cover medical devices, digital health and health technologies.
France, for its part, has secured a budget of €1.5 billion for projects under the ‘Health IPCEI’. The country will also devote €7.5 billion to the health sector as a whole.
Germany has not been a signatory to the manifesto to date, although it was involved at a very early stage in the working group that developed the ‘Health IPCEI’. According to Mrs Pannier-Runacher, the IPCEI has reached the stage of validation at national level of the allocated budgets, and Germany, in its discussions with the Bundestag, is not in a position to sign the manifesto. Several states are reportedly in situations of executive renewal. The commitment budgets of the other participating States are not yet fully specified. The Minister emphasises that the ‘Health IPCEI’ is increasingly bringing States together. The manifesto states that the signatories encourage the participation of other Member States. Nine Member States have already launched a call for expressions of interest.
Link to the manifesto: https://aeur.eu/f/lv (Original version in French by Émilie Vanderhulst)