Europe’s capacity to discover, develop and manufacture medical innovation is central to its competitiveness, health security and resilience. The next Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) should therefore translate the ambitions of the Competitiveness Compass, the Life Sciences Strategy, including the Biotech Act, into sustained investment across the full innovation journey, from excellent science to clinical development, regulatory readiness, manufacturing, deployment and patient access. 

The MFF stated focus on competitiveness translated into complementary Horizon Europe and the European Competitiveness Fund (ECF) is welcome. However, this intent is undermined by the lack of clearly ringfenced budget for health life sciences that puts into question Europe’s ability to implement competitiveness tools on the one hand, and by the corporate “CORE” tax that will weaken Europe’s attractiveness investments on the other hand.  

The final MFF must provide the scale, predictability and coherent, investment-friendly framework needed to close Europe’s widening innovation gap and make Europe a more attractive destination for globally mobile life science investments. 

1. Ringfence an ambitious budget for health and life sciences

Health and life sciences should receive a dedicated, identifiable and protected allocation in Horizon Europe and ECF commensurate with their contribution to Europe’s competitiveness, resilience and strategic autonomy. Funding should support not only individual technologies and products, but the ecosystem that accelerates and de-risks innovation across the value chain. 

• Research and translation: support excellent science, collaborative research, networks and centres of excellence, and enable rapid translation of knowledge into tangible health solutions. 

• Clinical and regulatory capacity: modernise multi-country clinical trial networks and strengthen the capacity of the European Medicines Agency and national regulatory networks for future health technologies to keep pace with other global regulators on speed of decisions. 

• Data, digital and deployment: invest in interoperable health-data infrastructures, AI-enabled health innovation, advanced manufacturing and health-system readiness for new solutions. 

• Patients and resilience: support prevention and management of chronic disease, sustainable patient participation, equitable access and resilient health systems. 

2. Chose investment over additional burden

EFPIA opposes the introduction of Corporate Resource for Europe (CORE) lump-sum contribution which represents a high risk for Europe’s competitiveness. A tax linked to turnover would add to the cumulative burden on companies, and directly contradicts the EU’s competitiveness objective of attracting research and manufacturing investment.  

Pharmaceutical R&D and manufacturing investments are highly mobile, globally contested and planned over decades. Additional cumulative burdens would weaken Europe’s attractiveness precisely when the EU is trying to reverse the decline in its share of global biopharmaceutical R&D investment. A turnover-based charge may also bear little relation to profitability or ability to pay, disproportionately affecting research-intensive business models. 

3. Keep the Competitiveness Fund and Horizon Europe open, collaborative and fit for purpose

Horizon Europe should fund excellent collaborative research, translation and clinical development, including through European Partnerships and Part II, ‘Competitiveness and Society’, while the ECF should support scale-up, demonstration, advanced manufacturing and deployment. The two instruments should operate as a connected funding pathway across the innovation journey, without creating gaps, duplication or competing application processes 

• International collaboration and EU preference: Europe must attract the best knowledge, expertise and resources. EU-preference or economic-security safeguards should be exceptional, targeted, proportionate and limited to entities receiving EU funding. 

• IP and implementation: participants must retain control of results, licensing and confidential information. Horizon Europe should avoid health-specific exploitation obligations that could deter companies from contributing clinical studies and other valuable assets, such as proprietary data, to collaborative to projects and weaken the uptake of innovative SMEs.  

• Simplification should reduce burden through fit-for-purpose rules and proportionate derogations, not an inflexible single rulebook. In particular, entities contributing in-kind to projects and not requesting any EU funding should be subject to a much simpler set of rules and obligations. 

4. Enable strong public-private partnerships

Public-private partnerships, including Joint Undertakings, combine EU funding with industry expertise, assets, data and long-term commitment, and should be able to connect research with ECF-supported scale-up and deployment. 

• In-kind contributions are the cornerstone of public-private collaborative research: the framework must recognise financial and/or in-kind contributions without making cash the default. In IHI, industry contributes resources without requesting EU funding, creating genuine additionality. 

• Fit-for-purpose partnership design: governance structures should reflect each partnership’s needs. Dedicated JU offices and flexible financial rules, including actual-cost reimbursement where needed, should be preserved. 

5. Clarify governance and ensure policy coherence

Governance should ensure transparent priority-setting, clearly defined responsibilities between Horizon Europe and the ECF, and structured involvement of industry, patients and the research community in programme design and implementation. Funding decisions should reflect scientific excellence, unmet need, European added value and potential competitiveness impact. The Life Sciences Coordination Group could support policy coherence but should not replace fit-for-purpose governance and stakeholder participation within individual instruments and partnerships. 

EFPIA’s call to EU decision-makers

The final MFF package should match Europe’s competitiveness ambitions with choices that reinforce investment: ringfence ambitious health funding in Horizon Europe and the ECF; preserve open, excellence-based collaboration; enable effective public-private partnerships based on in-kind and/or financial contributions; establish coherent and inclusive governance; and reconsider CORE so that EU budget financing supports, rather than undermines, Europe’s long-term attractiveness for life-science investment. 

For further information, see EFPIA’s detailed positions: 

• EFPIA preliminary response to the European Commission Multiannual Financial Framework package (July 2025) 

• EFPIA’s feedback on the future European Competitiveness Fund (Nov. 2025) 

• Call for Evidence on future Partnerships: EFPIA’s response (July 2026) 

• EFPIA Recommendations for the MFF (May 2025) / EFPIA’s Recommendations for FP10 (Dec. 2024) 

• Competitiveness Strategy for European Life Sciences (June 2024) 

• The Pharmaceutical industry in figures 2026 

• Clinical Trials in Europe: Proposals to Strengthen the Ecosystem (Apr. 2025) 

• Agenda for action: Expanding funding options for Small and Medium-Sized pharma companies in Europe (Oct. 2024).