HEAL Summit (Formerly Building Medicine Bridges 2.0), Lugano

Rationale for HEAL (formerly Building Medicine Bridges 2.0)

Across the world, the development and distribution of medicines and health technologies remain uneven. While medical science has advanced rapidly, the pathways connecting discovery to delivery remain fragmented-particularly for underrepresented and underserved populations, including those of African, Asian, Indian, Hispanic, and Indigenous ancestry, as well as other historically excluded groups.

Globally, fewer than 5% of clinical and genomic research participants are of African ancestry, and even fewer come from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This imbalance creates gaps in data, safety, efficacy, and policy relevance, resulting in therapies and technologies that do not fully reflect the diversity of the world’s population. The Every African Everywhere Health Solidarity Strategy (EASY) and similar equity-driven frameworks highlight the urgent need for new models of collaboration that bridge scientific discovery, clinical translation, regulatory policy, and equitable access with a priority in Cancer, Non-Communicable Diseases, CAR-T Therapy, Sickle Cell Disease, and Thalassemia.

To advance this agenda, the Health and Economics Advocacy Leadership Team is Building Medicine Bridges in preparation for the adoption of model laws through multi-stakeholder convenings that align science, policy, and partnership around one central question:

How can we build the scientific, regulatory, and ethical bridges needed to ensure that every medicine and health innovation works safely and effectively for every population—and is accessible everywhere?

Meeting Objectives

• To develop a global roadmap for equitable medicine development, from discovery to delivery.
• To establish cross-regional partnerships linking regulatory agencies, research institutions, and implementation networks.
• To promote African-led, locally led, and Global South-led frameworks for genomic equity, pharmacovigilance, and precision medicine.
• To identify mechanisms for sustainable financing and co-investment in inclusive health innovation ecosystems.
• To produce a “HEAL Declaration”—a shared Building Medicine Bridges commitment focused on legislative frameworks, regulation, accountability, and responsibility in global and public health.

Genetic and Genomic Differences Among African Ancestry Individuals PANEL: Less than 5% of participants in genomic and biomedical studies are of African ancestry, even though they represent nearly 1.8 billion people worldwide. Across the world, people of African ancestry carry the richest genetic diversity known to humankind — diversity that reflects over 200,000 years of human evolution, adaptation, and migration. Yet this same diversity remains the Least represented in global genetic and genomic research.

To close this scientific and ethical gap, the Every African Everywhere Health Solidarity Strategy (EASY) and its associated genomic initiatives

will pursue a coordinated research agenda that both characterizes this diversity and translates it into actionable knowledge for global health.

Research Goals: Collect and analyze genetic data from people of African ancestry around the world to understand what makes their DNA unique and diverse. This will help scientists develop better tools for studying health and disease in everyone.

PANEL on: European Commission’s launch of the EU non-communicable diseases (NCD) initiative to support EU countries in identifying and implementing effective policies and actions to reduce the burden of major NCDs and improve citizens’ health and well-being.

The initiative covers the 2022-2027 period and includes 5 strands:

cancer, health determinants, cardiovascular diseases diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases mental health and neurological disorders. All strands include a health equity dimension, thus supporting the reduction of health inequalities. Actions on cancer, which is also a major NCD, are covered in Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan. While the strands enable addressing particular challenges of each disease group, the initiative as such promotes a holistic and coordinated approach to prevention and care. It also supports better knowledge and data, screening and early detection, diagnosis and treatment management, and the improvement of quality of life for patients.

Implementation Research Workshop: Scientific discovery alone does not improve health outcomes — implementation does. While the fields of genomics, precision medicine, and biomedical innovation have advanced dramatically over the past two decades, these breakthroughs have not translated equitably across populations.

Underrepresented and underserved communities — including people of African ancestry, Indigenous peoples, Asian, Indian, Latino, Hispanic, Afro-descendant,

and other minority groups — continue to experience significant gaps in access, inclusion, and impact within global health research and innovation systems.

Most large-scale genomic databases and clinical trials still overwhelmingly reflect individuals of European ancestry, leaving vast populations without data that accurately represent their genetic diversity, disease risk, or treatment response. As a result, precision medicine — which promises individualised care based on genetics, environment, and lifestyle — risks reinforcing existing inequities rather than reducing them. To achieve true global health accessibility, scientific

discovery must be matched by deliberate, evidence-based implementation — ensuring that genomic knowledge, diagnostics, therapeutics, and digital health technologies, Al, quantum computing are accessible, acceptable, affordable, and effective for all populations, regardless of geography, ancestry, or socioeconomic status. Implementation Research provides the framework to make that possible — transforming discovery into measurable, equitable impact.

A Discussion on why was EASY created to change that narrative. EASY is a borderless, Africa-designed, Africa -Led strategic framework that unites governments, researchers, communities, and global partners to ensure that health technologies, medicines, and diagnostics are inclusive, available, affordable, acceptable, effective, and equitable for every African, everywhere in Cancer, NCDs, CART-Ts, Sickle Cell and Thalassemia.

The Every African Everywhere Health Solidarity Strategy (EASY) represents a transformative, Africa-led, and globally endorsed movement to ensure that every person of African ancestry — wherever they live — benefits equitably from

modern medicine, science, and health innovation. The role of African data sovereignty and ethical governance in the future of research.

• ABC, ABCC, AMC Cross-continental collaboration between Africa, the Caribbean, the Americas, Asia, and Europe.
• Cancer, Non-Communicable Diseases, CAR-T Therapy, Sickle Cell Disease, and Thalassemia Financing and policy mechanisms to sustain global solidarity in health research and innovation.