In June 2026, PRECISEU brought together policymakers, regional innovation ecosystems, clinical experts, patient representatives, research infrastructures and industry voices at the European Parliament for the high-level policy dialogue “PRECISEU with Choose Europe for Life Sciences”.
Hosted by MEP Nikos Papandreou and organised with the support of the Government of Catalonia, the event focused on two areas central to Europe’s life sciences agenda: Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products (ATMPs) and clinical trials. Both are fields where Europe has strong scientific excellence, but where implementation remains complex, uneven and too often fragmented. The discussion also connected closely with the proposed EU Biotech Act and the wider ambition to strengthen Europe’s life sciences ecosystem.
The event confirmed one of the key messages emerging from PRECISEU’s cross-regional work: Europe does not lack ambition in personalised medicine. What it needs now is stronger implementation capacity. Scientific progress is moving fast. But patients still experience unequal access to innovation across Europe. Clinical trials remain difficult to deliver across borders. ATMPs require complex value chains, from manufacturing and regulation to reimbursement, hospital readiness and patient access. The challenge is no longer only scientific. It is operational. As highlighted during the discussion, the science is there. The question is whether Europe can build the ecosystem around the science.
Top 5 takeaways from the discussion
1. Europe needs to close the gap between science and delivery
Europe remains globally strong in research, advanced healthcare and scientific expertise. But excellence alone is not enough. In her keynote, Paschalia Koufokotsiou, Policy Officer for Pharmaceutical and Health Policy at DG SANTE, presented how the EU Biotech Act aims to address structural barriers around ATMP development. The discussion pointed to the need for more supportive frameworks for manufacturing, regulatory science, clinical development and cross-border access.
For ATMPs and clinical trials, the decisive question is whether innovation can move from research into routine implementation. This requires infrastructure, regulatory predictability, investment, clinical readiness, trained professionals and patient access models that work in practice. The discussion around ATMPs made this point especially clear: the problem is not that the science has failed, but that the system around the science has not yet fully caught up.
2. Fragmentation remains one of Europe’s biggest barriers
A recurring message throughout the event was the need to reduce fragmentation. Fragmentation affects regulatory pathways, reimbursement models, clinical trial delivery, health data access, manufacturing capacity and patient access. In ATMP development, it can slow down the transition from hospital-based innovation to scalable access. In clinical trials, it makes cross-border studies harder to run and reduces Europe’s ability to act as one attractive research ecosystem.
One of the strongest messages from the ATMP discussion was that fragmentation has become Europe’s “valley of death” for ATMP development. Promising therapies risk being delayed not because the science is weak, but because the actors, infrastructure and pathways needed to bring them to patients are not sufficiently connected. This is where PRECISEU’s regional approach becomes important. Regions are where hospitals operate, where patients access care, where clinical trials are delivered and where innovation either reaches practice or remains isolated.
3. Clinical trials need “more Europe”
Clinical trials are not only a research issue. They are a competitiveness issue, a patient access issue and a health system readiness issue. During the clinical trials panel, Julio Delgado from Hospital Clínic de Barcelona called for “more Europe”: fewer national variations and a clinical research system that works more like one connected market.
While the Clinical Trials Information System provides a common European entry point, national ethical, legal and administrative requirements still create delays and uncertainty for multinational studies. Speakers highlighted the need for simpler operational processes, stronger clinical trial centres, better workforce capacity, faster budget negotiations and more predictable regulatory pathways. Europe also has important strengths: a densely populated continent, strong hospital networks and many Comprehensive Cancer Centres with advanced expertise. These are major assets, provided Europe can offer faster, more predictable and better coordinated processes.
Patient access must be central to this discussion. As oncology and other fields move towards precision medicine, access to biomarker testing, trial awareness, lower participation burden and cross-border participation are essential. A clinical research ecosystem should not only be efficient. It must also be accessible, inclusive and patient-centred.
4. Patient inequality in Europe must be addressed directly
The event also made clear that innovation does not have the same meaning for all patients if access depends on geography. Across Europe, patients do not have equal access to advanced therapies, clinical trials, diagnostics or specialised centres. This creates a real risk that personalised medicine increases inequality instead of reducing it. Patient organisations and patient representatives brought urgency into the discussion. One message was particularly powerful: “We need you to hurry up — patients are dying.”
Several speakers also stressed that implementation is not only a regulatory, financial or technical issue. It also depends on public understanding and trust. Europe needs to communicate more clearly about biotechnology, advanced therapies and personalised medicine, using tangible success stories and patient experiences. This patient perspective should not be treated as an additional layer to policy discussions. It is the reason these discussions matter. Patients are not passive recipients of innovation. They need to be involved from the outset in the design of clinical research, access pathways, communication, evidence generation and implementation models.
5. Europe needs shared implementation capacity, not only exchange of good practices
A central lesson for PRECISEU is that interregional collaboration must move beyond exchanging examples of what works. Europe needs shared capacity: connected clinical trial networks, stronger data infrastructure, ATMP manufacturing and logistics capacity, reimbursement learning, regulatory alignment, patient recruitment pathways and training models that can be adapted across regions.
In the high-level policy briefing, Anna-Pia Papageorgiou, Policy Officer for Health Innovations at DG Research and Innovation, placed the Biotech Act within the broader European Life Sciences Strategy. She underlined that policy ambition must be matched by adequate financing and that EU-level action needs to be reflected in national structures, policies and investments.
This is where PRECISEU can act as a facilitator and enabler.
PRECISEU connects 28 partners from 15 European regions to identify barriers, compare regional capacities, mobilise stakeholders and translate practical insights into policy-relevant messages. Its role is not to replace European strategies, but to help make them actionable at regional level. As underlined in the closing remarks by Robert Fabregat, CEO of Biocat, which coordinates PRECISEU, Europe must connect its centres of excellence rather than allow them to operate in isolation. Regions have a crucial role because they are where hospitals, research organisations, companies, public authorities and patients come together — and where European strategies must ultimately be translated into practice.
What this means for Europe
The Brussels discussion reinforced a simple conclusion: Europe’s future competitiveness in personalised medicine will not be determined only by where innovation is discovered. It will be determined by where innovation can be implemented. This requires more than research funding alone. It requires investment in clinical trial capacity, diagnostics, health data infrastructure, workforce development, reimbursement readiness, regulatory learning, public trust and ecosystem coordination. It also requires recognising regions as strategic assets. Regions are not merely delivery points for European policy. They are the places where hospitals adopt innovation, where patients access care, where clinical trials are delivered and where implementation succeeds or fails.
For PRECISEU, the next step is to continue translating these discussions into practical collaboration across regions. The goal is clear: to help Europe move from ambition to implementation and from fragmented excellence to wider patient access.