Ursula von der Leyen won a second term as president of the European Commission on Thursday, with 401 votes in favor from a total of 719 in the European Parliament.
After her win, von der Leyen reiterated her political guidelines for the bloc for the next five years, including a mission to revive the region’s life sciences ecosystem. She’s looking to simplify the EU’s regulatory processes through a new legislative act, encourage more public and private investment into innovative companies, and address drug shortages.
One of her key promises is the new European Biotech Act for 2025. The legislation would aim to make it easier to bring biotechs to the market and will do so, in part, by smoothing the EU’s complex regulatory processes, although details are yet to be spelled out.
The new act will be part of the EU’s broader Strategy for European Life Sciences, which will also allow for more public-private partnerships and boost collaboration between academia and businesses.
“The dedicated life sciences strategy, which includes plans for a new Biotech Act, is an important part of the wider drive to boost European competitiveness over the next five years,” Nathalie Moll, Director General at the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations (EFPIA), said in a Thursday press release.
More broadly, on the funding side, von der Leyen’s guidelines propose the EC should work closely with the European Investment Bank to boost investment from both the public and private sectors into promising companies. This will require coming up with new measures to ease the risks that commercial banks, investors and VC firms have to take when bankrolling high-risk but potentially high-reward companies.
The reelected president also promised to set up a European Savings and Investments Union that could help redirect European private wealth from going overseas to instead go toward supporting innovation in the EU, according to the guidelines.
“Innovative European companies and start-ups should not be forced to look at the United States, Asia or other markets to finance their expansion,” the guidelines said.
As for public health, von der Leyen has put forward plans for a Critical Medicines Act in response to severe drug shortages faced by the bloc in recent years. In December, more than 200 critical medicines were listed as at risk of shortage by the EC, including antibiotics and chemotherapies.
The act is designed to reduce dependencies on critical medicines and ingredients, especially those that are only made by a small number of countries or manufacturers.