From innovation to access: can Europe become a launchpad for breakthrough cardiovascular care?

Europe’s healthcare systems face mounting pressure from rising demand, ageing populations, workforce shortages and constrained budgets, making timely access to innovations that improve patient outcomes and deliver system-wide efficiencies increasingly important. 

Breakthrough innovation can help address severe unmet medical needs and life-threatening conditions where treatment options remain limited. Beyond improving patient outcomes, these technologies can reduce length of stay, lower complication rates and help hospitals and health systems use scarce clinical capacity more efficiently. Yet access remains uneven and often slow. 

Recent developments at EU level, including the EU Safe Hearts Plan, the revision of the Medical Device Regulation (MDR) and the EU Health Technology Assessment Regulation, have put breakthrough innovation higher on the European agenda. The next challenge is translating this recognition into patient access and uptake. As discussions on the Multiannual Financial Framework and public procurement rules advance, Europe has an opportunity to ensure that dedicated funding, investment and procurement frameworks support the adoption and scale-up of breakthrough technologies across Member States. 

However, financing and regulatory recognition are only part of the answer. Even when a breakthrough technology is approved, reimbursed and clinically validate, health systems need the training, skills and competences to deploy it safely and at scale. Complex procedures often remain concentrated in a handful of specialised centres, and shortages of trained specialists, nurses and support staff can leave life-changing innovations underused even where the clinical and economic case is clear. Building this capacity is as much a condition for adoption as funding and calls for the same coordinated approach at European level. 

The dinner will bring together EU and national policymakers, clinicians, patient representatives, academics and the private sector to explore what needs to change for breakthrough cardiovascular innovations to reach patients. The discussion will focus on how funding, investment, procurement and skills frameworks can work together to accelerate uptake and strengthen the sustainability of European health systems. 

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