In April 2025, the European Commission is expected to publish the Horizon Europe work programme 2025, including the calls for proposals in the health domain (cluster 1). Horizon Europe is the EU funding programme for research and innovation and the calls opening in the health domain require a consortium of partners, including companies, to apply. In the health part of the forthcoming work programme, the Commission is specifically encouraging SMEs to participate in 9 out of the 19 topics that are foreseen to open on 22 May 2025. This is the case for the following topics:

1. Testing safety and efficacy of phage therapy for the treatment of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections
2. Advancing innovative interventions for mental, behavioural and neurodevelopmental disorders
3. Development of antibodies and antibody-derived proteins  for the prevention of infectious diseases with epidemic potential
4. Leveraging artificial intelligence for pandemic preparedness and response
5. Enhancing cell therapies with genomic techniques
6. Advancing cell secretome-based therapies
7. Optimising the manufacturing of Advanced Therapy Medical Products (ATMPs)
8. Facilitating the conduct of multinational clinical studies of orphan devices and/or of highly innovative (“breakthrough”) devices
9. Boosting the translation of biotech research into innovative health therapies

Furthermore, the call topic on ‘Boosting the translation of biotech research into innovative health therapies’ requires that at least 50% of the total EU contribution to the project should go to SMEs.

Disclaimer: the draft Health Cluster text of the forthcoming Horizon Europe work programme 2025 that is already circulating is a provisional version that may be subject to change and will only take a final form upon official publication by the European Commission (expected in April/May 2025).