76th WHO Regional Committee for Europe Item 2: General debate

On 27 October 2026, IFPMA and EFPIA delivered a joint statement during the general debate of the 76th WHO Regional Committee for Europe.

The European region is currently facing a challenging environment of geopolitical tensions and open conflict, slow economic growth, declining competitiveness for life sciences, and increasing pressures on health systems. Against this background, we welcome the continued commitment to the Novel Medicines Platform as a neutral forum for dialogue on access to innovative medicines between Member States and all stakeholders. Securing early access to the latest innovative medicines and vaccines is a key strategic question for Europe, as well as ensuring continued investment in research, clinical trials, and manufacturing in the region. We also welcome several other initiatives on the agenda.

• Better prevention and management of NCDs is key for achieving a high level of population health, sustainable health systems, and economic growth. Prevention and preventative care, including life-course immunization and early detection of risk factors, followed by comprehensive treatment, management, and care, are important elements of such a strategy.
• We also welcome efforts to establish a pragmatic set of priorities toward advancing AI in health. This should proceed in alignment with existing regulatory, legal, and other frameworks, including global and European IP frameworks. Proportionate, evidence-, and risk-based approaches that are internationally coherent and avoid duplication of existing efforts are key in this regard.
• We further welcome the discussion on global health architecture reform and emphasize the need for an architecture that fosters innovation, strengthens health systems, and forges partnerships that advance health globally.

More detailed input has been provided through written statements. IFPMA and EFPIA are ready to work with WHO and all stakeholders on these and other important matters during the coming year.