Fast-tracking innovation in paediatric healthcare: The ADD4KIDS European Action Plan

The ADD4KIDS project is proud to unveil the European Action Plan for Paediatric Innovation, a strategic roadmap designed to accelerate the adoption of paediatric healthcare solutions across Europe. 

This milestone marks a major step towards addressing the critical gap between innovation and implementation in children’s healthcare. By leveraging demand-driven financing tools and fostering cross-border collaboration, the Action Plan outlines concrete strategies to ensure that life-changing paediatric innovations reach young patients faster and more effectively.

Why is this European Action Plan important? 

Despite rapid advancements in healthcare, the adoption of paediatric healthcare innovations remains slow, limiting access to life-changing solutions for children across Europe. Many promising innovations fail to reach young patients due to market failures, fragmented regulatory pathways, and perceived high risks, leading to delayed or unequal access to care for children across Europe.

To address these challenges, the ADD4KIDS project has developed the European Action Plan for Paediatric Innovation, offering a comprehensive, cross-border, demand-driven approach to enable the real-world uptake of innovation in paediatrics.

Unlocking the power of demand-driven financing 

One of the key barriers to paediatric innovation adoption is the underutilisation of demand-driven funding instruments. These innovative tools can reduce financial risk, enable co-investment, and create structured incentives for healthcare providers and innovators to bring solutions to market.

The ADD4KIDS European Action Plan promotes the use of:

• Public Procurement of Innovation (PPI) – Enabling healthcare providers to directly procure innovative solutions that are not yet widely available on the market.
• Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) – Supporting the research and development of breakthrough paediatric healthcare technologies through public-private partnerships.
• Value-Based Procurement (VBP) – Aligning procurement with patient outcomes and the long-term value of innovations, ensuring cost-effectiveness.
• Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) – Engaging private investors to fund high-impact paediatric innovations, with returns linked to measurable health outcomes.

Although these financial instruments offer solutions to overcome key market failures, they are rarely used in the paediatric sector due to limited awareness, regulatory complexity, and fragmented demand. ADD4KIDS aims to change this by providing a coordinated, evidence-based action plan that guides policymakers, healthcare providers, and investors on how to best leverage these tools, to adopt and scale these approaches for paediatric innovation adoption.

Access the European Action Plan here.

Get Involved: Turn the Plan into Action

The European Action Plan was officially released on 30 April 2025 and serves as a call to action for stakeholders across the healthcare innovation ecosystem.

Whether you are a healthcare provider, policymaker, startup, funder, or industry leader, this is your opportunity to:

• Take part in cross-border collaboration
• Apply innovative financing tools
• Help bring impactful paediatric solutions to patients faster

Let’s connect: If you or your organisation are working on aligned initiatives, or if you see a role for your network in supporting the European Action Plan’s priorities, we’d love to hear from you. Feel free to reach out to Nolwenn Schaan-Arturo Loureiro, ADD4KIDS Project Manager at EIT Health, to explore potential synergies or collaboration opportunities.

Join us in driving real change in paediatric healthcare!

EIT Health’s role 

As a key partner in ADD4KIDS, EIT Health has played a crucial role in the co-creation of the European Action Plan, leveraging its expertise in healthcare innovation, market access, and funding models. EIT Health focuses on the strategic application of pre-commercial procurement, public procurement of innovation, and social impact bonds to create sustainable pathways for paediatric innovations to reach patients. 

Learn more about ADD4KIDS.