Ladies and gentlemen,
Thank you for having me.
For health systems, being financially sustainable can be a Herculean task.
You, payers know this best, as for you this fight is an everyday reality.
Even if it is clear, healthcare spending is an investment.
But very often, health ministers are struggling to convince their finance minister fellow that financial sustainability takes longer time and first we need to invest, which on a short run seems to be too expensive.
Innovation, if meaningful, brings saving.
We only know if innovation is real, if we can measure it. The health technology assessment regulation will deliver on the first clinical assessment. But this assessment, which by the way is also a very costly exercise, makes only sense if Member States effectively use it in their decision making.
The European health dataspace will also help this process. From patient and disease registries big datasets will be available to measure the real-life effectiveness of medical technologies.
But innovation is useless if does not reach everyone.
So, in the pharma package, the Commission is working to strike the right balance between innovation and access.
First, we are reforming the EUs pharmaceutical rules.
We want to create an environment that:
- supports new medicine development,
- values unmet medical need,
- encourages a competitive market, once the protection is over,
- and promotes investment.
And it will simplify processes, reducing costs and speeding up market access for affordable medicines.
The package will also help to make medicines more affordable.
Therefore, I am committed to defend an effective Bolar clause, that will ensure generic competition to start from day one after protection expires.
I am glad the co-legislators plan, to finalise the negotiations by the end of the year, so that this can quickly become a reality.
Our aim is always to ensure that EU patients have access to the medicines, while securing our supply chain and reducing dependencies for medicines and medtech.
For this reason, the Commission has also put forward the proposal for a Critical Medicines Act as a priority.
The primary aim of this Act is to reduce our dependencies around critical medicines and improve their security of supply.
Some measures, like using procurement criteria beyond price alone, may come at a cost.
However, nothing is more costly than not having access to the medicines we need and being exposed to third country suppliers who enjoy monopolistic situations.
Health systems are unimaginable without a robust medical devices sector. And the current legislative framework makes our medtech industry weaker and weaker.
Therefore, we are also proposing a reform of the EUs rules on medical devices by the end of the year.
We want to simplify, cut red tape and make the procedures more harmonised, while keeping patient safety at the centre.
This will help bring about quicker, more predictable access to innovation in medical tech – which will benefit European patients.
We want to create specific regulatory pathways for small patient populations too, like paediatrics, orphan and breakthrough devices.
So that nobody is left behind.
In parallel, we will adopt short-term measures that will apply by the end of the year.
These measures will harmonise the timelines of notified bodies and support to SMEs and manufacturers, so they can place innovative tech on the market faster.
If we do not fix shortcomings of the medical devices rules, the sector will shrink, which means there will be less operators, less competition and higher prices.
At the same time, we cannot lose sight of the geopolitics.
The global competition is stiff, and our task is to protect our health industry that is key to have resilient health systems.
For that it is inevitable that we create a favourable business environment.
Because without strong European health industry, there is no robust, well performing healthcare system.
The recently adopted rules under the Green Deal led to decisions that pose serious risk to financial sustainability.
We hear that the urban wastewater treatment directive raises concern for many stakeholders, including the payers. We hope to see the result of the new study announced in the Water resilience strategy very soon.
Because it cannot happen that due to bad legislation people do not have access to the diabetes, epilepsy medicines or antibiotics or, even if they can, only at much higher prices.
Therefore I think, we should be bold enough to take corrective actions if necessary.
Let me move to another major cost for health systems: population ageing.
People are living longer, which is a wonderful thing.
But we need to reckon with what this means in terms of providing care.
The 2024 Ageing Report estimates that public healthcare spending in the EU will go up from the current share of 6.9 percent of GDP to 7.7 percent of GDP in 2070.
This is under a scenario where all the life years people gain are spent in poor health.
But this doesnt have to be the case.
The same report tells us it is possible to contain public spending on healthcare at the current share – if we apply healthy ageing policies widely.
If we want to support healthy ageing, we start by preventing disease.
The economics suggest that every euro spent on disease prevention can yield up to a 14-euro return to the economy.
Two weeks ago, World Heart Day reminded us that cardiovascular diseases are Europes number one cause of death.
Every year, 1,7 million lives are lost for causes that could be prevented in 80% of the cases.
Even more alarming are the trends of younger generations. Overweight, obesity and diabetes have increased over the last 30 years. Today, almost 30% of children are overweight. With age theses tendencies increase.
Yet, individuals with strong cardiovascular health live about 8 years longer. Now, for the first time, building on the EU Beating Cancer plan, we will have an EU cardiovascular health plan in the works.
The Plan will cover prevention, early detection and screening, treatment and care, including rehabilitation.
It will provide a blueprint and support to guide national action, spanning different sectors and stakeholders, with a focus on lifelong prevention.
One last point.
If we want health systems to thrive over the long term, they also need access to cutting-edge innovation.
Biotechnology is one of Europes fastest-growing innovative industries.
And we have a world-class scientific base - on a par with the US & China.
But, despite this, innovation in the lab is not reaching the market like it should.
This is why we are going to propose an EU Biotech Act.
We want to create a more innovation-friendly environment across the biotech life cycle.
This will pay huge dividends for patients and our health systems.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Thank you again for having me.
And for your commitment to innovation, affordable access, and financial sustainability in health systems.
I have mentioned just a few ways the Commission is working to ease the burden on health systems and help people live longer and healthier lives.
This balance is central to our approach, and Im glad of your support.
Thank you, and I wish you a nice reception.
