On Thursday 12 March, the Official Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Belgium and Luxembourg hosted a luncheon debate with the Director-General of the European Commission’s Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA) of the European Commission, Florika Fink-Hooijer, who outlined some of the strategic priorities for strengthening European health capabilities, as well as the challenges in innovation and the projects currently being developed by the DG.

Sponsored by Grifols, the event began with a networking cocktail reception, followed by lunch. The round of speeches was opened by the Chamber’s president, Pablo López-Álvarez, who welcomed the attendees and the speaker. Next, Jose Terencio, Senior Vice-President Discovery at Grifols shared his thoughts on the need to reduce external dependence in the biomedical industry, and the role of innovation that the industry must maintain with the support of institutions and policy-makers in the sector, amongst other topics.

Terencio then handed over to Florika Fink-Hooijer, who outlined some of HERA’s strategic priorities, such as methods for combating contact-transmitted viruses and concerns about the possibility of neglected diseases becoming epidemics.

At the same time, she emphasised the need for research and development to help create a market or to collaborate with industry in order to continue innovating in this field, amongst other things. Attendees were then able to ask questions regarding the unit’s budget or whether the ‘Industry Days’ would be held again, to which Fink-Hooijer replied in the affirmative and welcomed the interest shown by companies at the previous event.