Healthy competition: Can Europe regain its global edge in life sciences?

Since the publication of Ursula von der Leyen’s political guidelines in July 2024, increasing competitiveness has become a mantra across the EU policy landscape, along with ‘closing the gap’ with the US and China in strategic industries and technologies. In this context, life sciences – and in particular human health and bio-based domains – could prove to be a key litmus test of Europe’s ability to achieve its wider goals. Many of the foundation blocks are in place for life sciences to power a new age of industrial leadership and performance in Europe, not least through leveraging its world-class research institutions and infrastructures. Yet it is widely acknowledged that Europe consistently falls short in leveraging these assets to deliver cutting-edge products and services to market – due to a well-known host of issues ranging from regulatory, legislative and pricing complexity to fragmented R&I, data and investment ecosystems. Meanwhile, another key variable for the future remains the outcome of final negotiations on the EU’s new ‘pharma package’, and the degree to which it will help or hinder innovation in one of Europe’s most valuable sectors.

Against this backdrop, the European Commission has launched a “Choose Europe for life sciences” strategy that aims to make the continent the preferred destination for talent, capital and innovation by 2030. To achieve this, various measures are foreseen to optimise the R&I ecosystem, smooth the pathways to market for novel products and solutions, and boost the uptake of health- and bio-oriented innovation. In parallel, policymakers are looking at removing other structural barriers, with a ‘single market’ for clinical trials and data sharing high on the list.

Nonetheless, the EU’s objectives cannot be removed from the global context – one in which the US administration appears set on disrupting not just markets and supply chains, but also multilateral initiatives to tackle current and future health crises and global science collaboration platforms. In that regard, it is equally important to reflect on how the life science strategy will shape Europe’s future alliances with like-minded countries elsewhere in the world, and how that may contribute to wider interests around competitiveness, preparedness and security.

For life science stakeholders, therefore, actions will matter more than words if Europe is to regain its position as the world’s most attractive destination – and partner – for research, commercialisation and manufacturing. Against this backdrop, a number of strategic questions arise: what are the structural changes and conditions needed to optimise the R&I ecosystem, and how can those be achieved? How can research value chains themselves be strengthened? Will the strategy – and other initiatives such as the Biotech Act – inspire more innovative models of funding and/or science-to-business partnership? Can the ‘One Health’ approach help to deliver greater synergies between life science programmes and equivalents in domains such as AI and climate? And in light of the US’s withdrawal from the global arena, should Europe embrace a new model of life science diplomacy to fill the void?

On October 16th, Science|Business will bring together high-level experts from across the research & innovation spectrum and policy makers to discuss how the EU competitiveness mantra can be best applied to across the life sciences value chain, from lab to the global market.