IFPMA side-event at WHA79: Innovating for health security

Innovating for Health Security

The global health landscape is facing converging pressures: resurgent infectious diseases, climate-driven outbreaks, rising AMR, zoonotic spillover, and increasingly interconnected populations. As highlighted in the recent IFPMA supported health security analysis, protecting societies from these threats requires sustained investment in systems that prevent, detect, and respond to health challenges—not only during crises but continuously.

Innovation plays a central role across this continuum. From cutting-edge epidemiological tools and genomic surveillance to next generation vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and delivery systems, new advances are redefining what is possible for preparedness and response. Yet innovation only delivers impact when systems, regulatory pathways, and collaboration mechanisms and trust allow new solutions to reach people quickly and equitably. This event brings together thought leaders to explore how health innovation can strengthen global resilience, drawing on real-world lessons and forward-looking opportunities.

Objectives

To convene a high-level multidisciplinary dialogue that:

• Showcases new scientific, technological, and operational innovations that can strengthen global health security.

• Highlights the end-to-end pathway—from detection to delivery—and areas where collaboration between public, private, and multilateral partners is essential.

• Introduces the growing role of AI across epidemiology, diagnostics, R&D, and delivery—exploring both the opportunities (e.g., predictive modelling, faster target discovery, enhanced diagnostics) and the challenges (e.g., data governance, equity gaps, reliability, and trust).

• Identifies enablers and persistent bottlenecks in turning innovation into scalable, equitable impact, especially in lower-resource settings.
• Helps shape IFPMA’s contribution to health security discussions in 2026, including ahead of the UN High-Level Meeting on PPPR.

By registering for this event, your data will be processed according to the IFPMA data privacy policy. A photographer will be present, and it is possible that photographs of you will be taken during the event and used for promotional and communication purposes.