Investment in health: A proven driver of growth

By European Alliance for Personalised Medicine (EAPM) Executive Director Denis Horgan

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker recently unveiled his 'Investment Plan for Europe', telling MEPs: “Europe needs a kick-start.”

Describing the plan as “ambitious, yet realistic”, Juncker revealed that the new European Fund for Strategic Investments is set to launch in mid-2015 and run for three years.

Much of Juncker’s touted figure of €315 billion will, according to the president, be made up of private investment (a wished-for €252bn) with the rest “guaranteed with public money from the EU budget and the European Investment Bank.”

Some economists have criticised the plan, saying that the sum - while sounding impressive - is insufficient to revive an EU economy whose eurozone growth rate sits below 1%, whose unemployment level is more than 11% and whose entire economy is teetering close to deflation.

Juncker himself conceded during his speech to MEPs that investment levels are down to €370 billion below “pre-crisis norms”, a situation he blamed on investors lacking confidence and trust in the 28-country bloc’s economy.

The Commission chief added that the EU’s “debt levels have increased from 60% of GDP to 90% in the space of just a few years”. Clearly, then, Europe does need that kick-start – and quickly too.

Whether €315bn, even if generated, is enough remains to be seen. But regardless of the amount, where should the new investment be targeted to get the best value, not only for the economy in general, but also for the EU’s 500 million citizens?

Juncker told the parliament that he has: “a vision of a hospital in Florence saving lives with state-of-the-art medical equipment”. Of course, he didn’t only mean Florence, but hospitals all over Europe, and there he hits the nail on the head.

The European Alliance for Personalised Medicine (EAPM) believes that the health-care sector, and in particular the innovative research, treatments, data streams, new education and unprecedented collaborations that come with personalised medicine, can be a prime driver of the EU’s economy and help to unlock much-needed investment that, as Juncker points out, Europe is currently lacking..

But why health and personalised medicine? Well, we all know that Europe has an aging population and, at any one time, millions are ill to some degree or another. One of the EU’s basic tenets, that of equality, has not been achieved when it comes to patients gaining access to existing best treatments, or even advice, equally across the Union.

Scientific advances continue, leading to better treatments and medicines being developed all the time. Add to this the advances in genomic science, a major factor in personalised medicine and individually targeted treatments, and it is clear that the possibilities for a healthier and, thus, wealthier Europe exist.

The sector is ripe for new investment.

If the Commission needs convincing, it should make no mistake about the correlation between wealth and health. Studies – at least one conducted on behalf of the EU executive itself - have repeatedly shown that the benefits of improved public health extend beyond simply reducing health-care costs. The facts are that better health - in both richer and poorer countries, as it turns out – makes a positive contribution to the productivity of citizens.

Add to this the facts that less hospital beds are used up, people tend to work longer before retiring when they are healthier, citizens are more productive when healthy and often work longer hours, there are less sick days taken, and we already have clear and concrete reasons why better health can contribute substantially to economic growth.

On top of this, consistent evidence from richer countries has shown that healthier people have higher earnings and , even, that they are more likely to be employed, with less healthy citizens often overlooked in the jobs market

Also, when viewed historically, there is no doubting the importance of investment in better health as a way to promote economic growth.

Of course, the difference in poorer countries is more substantial – due to sudden availability of previously unaffordable basic drugs, and so on - but, still, it is a fact that the economic wealth of even the richer member states owes a great deal to improvements in health down the decades.

In the UK, for example, from 1790 to 1980 some 30% of economic growth is thought to be directly related to better health and diet. Elsewhere, a study in 10 industrialized countries over the hundred years up to the mid-1990s found that better health increased the rate of economic growth by almost one third.

One third. Imagine. How Mr Juncker and all of us could do with that today.

EAPM and its broad range of stakeholders has always maintained, and continues to do so, that solid and sustained investment in health and the new technologies inherent in the provision of personalised medicine will help to create an environment in which healthy countries attract new money, promote growth and, vitally important, get the right treatment to the right patient at the right time, to keep medical costs down, productivity up and the standard of health care as good as it can be for all

On that note, EAPM urges Juncker and his Commission to work tirelessly towards creating an environment in which potential investors feel confident in, among other things, regulatory frameworks, the quality of research, talented innovators and tomorrow’s growing EU economy.

We need these investors to put their much-valued time, expertise and, yes, cash into building a healthy and wealthy continent, now and into the future. Put simply, better health for all means more productivity and an increase in growth, quite aside from the Union’s custodians’ moral and ethical obligations to care for the EU’s population in the best way possible.

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