Optimising digital infrastructure in healthcare, need for investment and incentives inside and outside the sector

Question for written answer  E-001133/2021
to the Commission
Rule 138
Jan Huitema (Renew)

The EU wants to support the innovation capacity of the EU pharmaceutical industry. At the same time, the Commission expects European pharmaceutical policy to evolve in line with the green and digital transitions, as well as demographic changes and needs. By 2025, the Commission wants to establish an interoperable data access infrastructure for the European Health Data Space to facilitate secure cross-border analysis of health data. It wants to support public-private and public-public partnerships, both financially and technically, with a particular focus on SMEs, academia and non-profit organisations. This is to boost innovation and projects that harness high-performance computing and artificial intelligence in EU health data, which is particularly important for orphan drugs.

• 1.Does the Commission intend to give additional impetus to private sector initiatives which, in addition to transforming the healthcare system, also accelerate the green and digital transitions, for example with intelligent public procurement procedures? Can the Commission be more specific about the financial instruments aimed at making it more interesting for private initiators to co-invest in the collection and analysis of big data and real-world data?
• 2.What instruments does the Commission intend to use to encourage the use of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence in combination with European health data for innovation, such as for cross-border analyses of orphan drugs?