Pre-commercial procurement of affordable solutions for healthcare systems in the areas of cancer technologies, cancer medical devices, or cancer medicines

Expected Outcome:

This action supports the follow-up to the July 2023 Communication on EU Missions assessment[1]. Proposals under this topic should aim to deliver results that are directed and tailored towards, and contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Public procurers, possibly in cooperation with private ones, in the area of cancer-centred healthcare stimulate the competitive development of market-ready, affordable, innovative solutions.

• The chosen solutions take into consideration the needs of cancer patients living with and beyond cancer through research that supports end-user engagement using participative research models.

• Procurers create opportunities for European health, technology and medical devices, industrial actors (including start-ups, spin-offs, spin-outs, scale-ups, SMEs) to bring to the market affordable innovations that are cost-efficient, safe and have demonstrated improved health outcomes for cancer patients living with and beyond cancer.

• Procurers facilitate the commercialisation of innovative solutions for and with cancer patients by their successful suppliers through providing them with first customer references for the validation and first pilot deployment.

• Policymakers, healthcare providers and professionals, cancer patients and their carers – each in their respective areas – exchange and adopt good practices and the best treatment, technology and medical device solutions that the market can deliver through participative research.

Scope:

Pre-commercial procurement (PCP) actions target consortia of procurers with similar needs that want to procure together the development of affordable, innovative solutions for healthcare systems in the areas of cancer technologies, cancer medical devices, or cancer medicines[2].

Proposals should address all of the following:

• The focus should be on affordable solutions for healthcare systems in the areas of cancer technologies, cancer medical devices, or cancer medicines that benefit cancer patients. Within this topic, it is possible to foresee the transfer and adaptation of solutions and/or interventions from other sectors to healthcare systems. It is open both to proposals requiring improvements based on one specific solution or technology, or medical device as well as to proposals requiring end-to-end solutions that need combinations of different types of innovation.

• The requested innovative solutions for healthcare systems in the areas of affordable cancer technologies, cancer medical devices, or cancer medicines should be clinically validated, piloted or upscaled by the participating procurers in at least five different countries across the EU Member States and Associated Countries.

• Continuous dialogue between the demand and supply side is required for the success of pre-commercial procurement. Therefore the effective involvement of end-users (e.g. academia, clinical teams, cancer patients and their caregivers/families, cancer patient representatives, local or regional medical services, hospitals, production facilities) must be considered in the proposal. To stimulate dialogue with the supply side, procurers are required to organise an open-market consultation before launching the procurement and to promote the call for tenders widely across Europe to potentially interested suppliers.

• Procurers should declare in the proposal their interest to purchase at least one solution resulting from the PCP in case the PCP delivers successful solutions and indicate whether they will (1) procure the solution(s) as part of the PCP or (2) in a separate follow-up procurement after the PCP. In the first case, procurers can implement the project as a fast-track PCP (see general annex H) and foresee the budget to purchase at least one solution during the PCP. In the second case, the procurers must include in the proposal a deliverable that prepares the follow-up procurement to purchase successful solution(s) after the PCP.

• Activities covered should support national healthcare systems and mobilise technical assistance and/or capacity building to other procurers beyond the project to mainstream PCP implementation and to remove obstacles for introducing the innovative solutions for the benefit of cancer patients to be procured into the market.

[1] EUR-Lex - 52023DC0457 - EN - EUR-Lex

[2] Pre-commercial procurement (PCP) actions target consortia of procurers with similar needs that want to procure together the development of affordable, innovative solutions for healthcare systems in the areas of cancer technologies, cancer medical devices, or cancer medicines. This topic does not provide direct funding to developers, industry or research organisations to perform R&D. They will be able to respond to the call for tenders launched by consortia of procurers funded under this call