The New European Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority
On September 16, 2021 the European Commission launched the European Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (HERA) to prevent, detect and rapidly respond to health emergencies.
Before a crisis: preparedness
HERA will support research and innovation for the development of new medical countermeasures, including through Union-wide clinical trial networks and platforms for the rapid sharing of data. HERA will also carry out health threat assessments and intelligence gathering. It will develop models to forecast an outbreak, address market challenges and boost industrial capacity.
In the preparedness phase, HERA will work closely with other EU and national health agencies, industry and international partners to improve the EU’s readiness for health emergencies.
During a health crisis: emergency response
If a public health emergency is declared at EU level, HERA has the capacity to implement emergency measures to ensure swift decision making under the direction of a Health Crisis Board. It can make emergency funding available and launch mechanisms for the development, manufacturing, procurement and equitable distribution of key medical countermeasures.
To guarantee access to sufficient production capacity, the Commission is setting up the EU FAB flexible manufacturing project. The goal is to greatly reduce the time needed between development and industrial scale-up of vaccines and therapeutics.
