These recommendations were submitted on May 9th, 2025.
The European Union faces a critical vulnerability in health security: overwhelming dependence on foreign manufacturers for medical countermeasures and their essential components. This dependency creates strategic risks where life-saving medicines could become weapons of economic coercion during geopolitical tensions.
We submitted recommendations to DG HERA’s call for evidence on the EU strategy for medical countermeasures against public health threats, drawing on our expertise in supply chain resilience for health security.
Strategic Recommendations
- Coordinated “Friendshoring” Strategy: Member states should coordinate industrial strategies to create complementary manufacturing capabilities. EU-wide mapping and strategic dialogue should ensure investments target complementary medical countermeasures rather than duplicating efforts.
- “Minilateral” Partnership Framework: Establish flexible partnerships with like-minded nations outside the union, including the United Kingdom. Just as Western European nations formed the European Coal and Steel Community, today’s economies should consider modern partnerships to achieve strategic superiority in defence and health security.
- Diplomatic Protection: The European Commission should convene multilateral negotiations to establish a permanent exemption for medical countermeasures from tariffs and trade restrictions, ensuring that medical supplies remain protected.
- Industrial Ecosystem Revitalisation: Efforts should be made to restore supporting industrial infrastructure, including chemical processing capabilities, raw material production, and interconnected supply networks that enable pharmaceutical manufacturing.
- Strategic Procurement: Government procurement and advanced market commitments should be used to retain companies producing innovative biomanufacturing methods, preventing them from being lured abroad by foreign venture capital.
Our recommendations emphasise that medical countermeasures represent fundamental components of European strategic autonomy. The current EU strategy development represents a critical opportunity to establish frameworks protecting European health security while building economically viable domestic capabilities.
For our full submission to DG HERA’s medical countermeasures strategy consultation, please click the ‘Download’ button below.
