Our projects and activities helped to accelerate new solutions and approaches that can scale and transform healthcare in Europe. Bringing together the right people on key topics, we drove thought leadership to harmonise where there is fragmentation, and initiate innovation effectively.  

To provide the right structure for this vital work, our organisation initiated a governance reform to be concluded in 2022. This will increase cohesion across our pan-EU Co-Location Centres and ensure we are fully adapted to Horizon Europe’s legislative framework and agreements – the EU’s new Framework Programme for Research and Innovation.

This year, we adopted a new strategic agenda which set our long-term ambitions until 2027. This longer-term vision aligns with the adoption of EIT’s new Strategic Innovation Agenda as well as   Horizon Europe, for the period 2021-2027. After years of growth, we undertook an organisational transformation and have implemented a more comprehensive impact measurement methodology to assess and drive our continued success.    

As the pandemic continued, we continued to make significant contributions to the EIT community response to COVID-19 across Europe, while delivering strong results across ongoing activities.  

To promote better health of citizens, new products, services, and programmes were realised, driven by own network of Partners, with our help.  

We also supported projects to drive systemic change and strengthen healthcare systems in Europe. This year, we set up dedicated High Value Care pilots with the aim of improving patient outcomes and generating clinical evidence to improve healthcare system sustainability.

Strengthening healthcare systems 

Never has our work to strengthen healthcare systems been more urgently needed than throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, our fight against the pandemic continued through cross-border response projects, which made significant contributions to strengthen healthcare systems. Initiated in 2020, these projects developed new solutions across testing and diagnostics, treatments and vaccines, medical and personal protective equipment, clinical support, and patient monitoring.

Covidum Community 

Of the various successes of our cross-border COVID-19 response projects, one is particularly notable. Through our project, Covidum Community, we developed a web application that improved home monitoring of patients with mild to moderate symptoms of COVID-19. Providing ambulatory medicine based on remote surveillance, it has helped 300,000 patients so far.

Pandemic hinders progress of clinical trials 

In 2021, the impact of COVID-19 continued to hinder progress of clinical trials. Resources within the healthcare system were focused on the pandemic response, making regular processes slower. This shift in focus, added to existing difficulties in data gathering, made it hard for start-ups to meet the evidential requirements needed to gain market access. 

Easing the path to market access 

In the face of pandemic-driven operational challenges within the innovation landscape, the support we gave start-ups to become market-ready became even more vital. With our help to refine their business model, overcome regulatory hurdles, and attract finance, EIT Health-supported start-ups have been able to put solutions into the hands of those who need them most, much faster. 

Venture Centre of Excellence and Investor Network 

The Venture Centre of Excellence (VCoE), which we run in partnership with the European Investment Fund (EIF), is a public-private co-investment programme to empower finance for European health start-ups. In 2021, VCoE supported five start-ups to attract €35 million of investments and established initial deal flow and connection with the European Investment Fund and other venture capital investors. Our Investor Network supported 15 start-ups, attracting more than €23 million of investment.  

Invest Health 

These outstanding results led us to ask how we can take the support we provide start-ups to attract capital to the next level. The answer is a new for-profit investment services company, Invest Health, part of the EIT Health family. When it launches, Invest Health will bring together cutting-edge enterprises with investors and corporate partners around the world. It will help private funding to identify and support the market-ready businesses primed to answer our biggest health challenges.  

Shaping the healthcare landscape 

Innovation is wasted if the world isn’t ready for it, which is why our thought leadership activity aims to contribute to the healthcare policy debate within Europe. Our primary thought leadership vehicle, the EIT Health Think Tank, brings together Europe’s most influential thought leaders and subject matter experts from within and beyond our network, to debate pressing issues facing our healthcare innovation ecosystem. We widely disseminate our analysis of these discussions and insights, bringing recommendations and suggested solutions to the fore, to shape the environment in which we operate and catalyse change. 

Generating insights for the European Commission and beyond 

Across 2021, we organised or participated in eight high-level pan-EU policy events. We published two new Think Tank Reports: “Are we MDR ready?” and “Learning from health data use cases: Real-world challenges and enablers to the creation of the European Health Data Space (EHDS)”. These well-received reports enabled us to contribute to policy development. 

Are we MDR ready? 

In May, the EIT Health Think Tank published “Are we MDR Ready?”. This report captured the outcomes of three focus groups that sought to ascertain the level of readiness and preparedness for regulators and manufacturers for the new Medical Devices Regulation. The insights in the report helped identify what educational or other relevant resources could be provided and disseminated through the network.  

Learning from health data use cases 

In agreement with the European Commission, we engaged in a research exercise to support the development of the legislative framework of the EHDS. In the resulting report, “Learning from health data use cases: Real-world challenges and enablers to the creation of the EHDS”, we described use cases to outline real world barriers to maximising the full potential of health data in Europe, with help from our Partners. The report was shared with the European Commission and disseminated through a launch event attended by policy makers. 

The future innovations we help to launch will have tangible impact on people in Europe and our healthcare systems. So, in 2022, it is of key importance that patients and citizens continue to be involved throughout the innovation process. To track our impact, we will carry on measuring the direct benefit our innovations have on patients and citizens across the EU and beyond. 

In 2022, we will extend our community’s reach by creating a new Co-Location Centre (CLC) in Austria. With strong local support from three ministries and the city of Vienna, our new CLC will be well-resourced to ramp up quickly and reinforce our network. We will also evolve our Alumni network, a multi-disciplinary community of innovators which connects participants of EIT Health’s activities. 

Over the next year, we will look at ways to focus our portfolio across initiatives that address the underlying drivers of health. We will work with our Partners to identify areas where we can shift the dial most, so we can evolve our strategy to best leverage our collective assets to maximise societal impact.  

Read our business plan to learn more about what we hope to achieve in 2022. 

Thank you for reading the EIT Health Annual Report 2021. Do you want to deliver societal impact with us? Learn about our Partnership network and find out how to join.