HIHI at the IPHA Annual Conference: Innovation, EU Presidency and the Future of Irish Health
Health Innovation Hub Ireland was proud to take part in the Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association (IPHA) Annual Conference this week, joining the inaugural IPHA Innovation Corridor — a new dedicated space showcasing Irish health innovation at one of the sector’s most important gatherings of the year. We’re grateful to IPHA for including us in this first-ever corridor, which brought together some of the most exciting work happening across Ireland’s health innovation ecosystem. It was a natural home for HIHI, sitting as we do at the intersection of clinical need, enterprise, and health system adoption.
A welcome visit from Minister Carroll MacNeill
One of the highlights of the day was welcoming Jennifer Carroll MacNeill TD to the HIHI stand. The Minister took time to catch up on our work across the full innovation pipeline — and in particular, to revisit the FemTech agenda she knows well, having launched our FemTech in Healthcare Report last August. That report positioned Ireland as a leader in women’s health innovation, and the conversation was a timely reminder of how much has moved since then — and how much further we can go.
Ireland’s moment: the EU Council Presidency
The conference backdrop made the conversation even more significant. From July 2025, Ireland takes the chair of the EU Council — and IPHA President Shane Ryan set the tone in his opening remarks, recognising the power of Irish innovation to shape human health outcomes, drive economic resilience, and unlock export potential across Europe and beyond.
The Minister discussed Ireland’s impending Presidency in some depth. While the formal priority agenda will be published in June, the direction of travel is already clear: competitiveness, security, and sustainable prosperity — with health innovation sitting squarely at the intersection of all three.
This is not incidental. Ireland’s life sciences ecosystem — our clinical infrastructure, our regulatory expertise through the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA), and our integral role in the European Medicines Agency — gives us a genuine platform to shape the EU health agenda in a way few Presidencies can. The pharma and health sectors aren’t simply observers of that agenda. We are central to it.
What this means for health innovation in Ireland
For HIHI, the EU Presidency represents a significant strategic opportunity. The priorities of competitiveness and sustainable prosperity align directly with the work we do every day — identifying clinical needs, validating innovations in real healthcare settings, and building the evidence base that connects Irish enterprise to health system adoption and international markets.
As Ireland prepares to lead at EU level, the case for investing in that pipeline — and in programmes like HIHI that make it work — has never been stronger.
We look forward to continuing these conversations as the Presidency takes shape, and to playing our part in ensuring Irish health innovation is visible, valued, and impactful on the European stage.