New European Authority will support research and innovation for the development for new medical countermeasures

In the context of the State-of-the-Union address of European Commission President von der Leyen on 15 September 2021, the European Commission launched the European Health Emergency preparedness and Response Authority (HERA), to prevent, detect, and rapidly respond to health emergencies. HERA will anticipate threats and potential health crises, through intelligence gathering and building the necessary response capacities. Amongst number of other tasks, HERA will also support research and innovation for the development for new medical countermeasures, including through Union-wide clinical trial networks and platforms for the rapid sharing of data.

HERA activities will be funded by a budget of €6 billion from the current Multiannual Financial Framework for the period 2022-2027, part of which will come from the NextGenerationEU top-up. Other EU programmes such as the Recovery and Resilience Facility, REACT-EU, Cohesion Funds or the InvestEU Programme inside the EU, and the Neighbourhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument out of the EU will also contribute to building resilient healthcare systems.  Together with the above €6 billion the total support will thus amount to almost €30 billion under the next financing period.

Regarding its organisation, HERA will be set up as an internal Commission structure. The new authority should become fully operational in early 2022. Its functioning will be reviewed and adapted on an annual basis until 2025, when a full review will be carried out.

More information is available in the official press release.