Three Horizon Europe Health wins secure almost €26M in funding

Three Catalyze-supported projects have been awarded funding across highly competitive Horizon Europe Health calls, securing almost €26 million in total. The three awards include approximately €8 million, €10 million and €8 million for projects addressing breakthrough medical devices, low-value care and post-infection long-term conditions. We spoke with our Innovation Consultants behind the successful proposals to understand what made these projects stand out and how they were shaped for success.

Results achieved in highly competitive calls

The three awards were secured under Horizon Europe Health calls covering multinational clinical studies of orphan and breakthrough devices, low-value care, and post-infection long-term conditions. For the two-stage call on multinational clinical studies of orphan and breakthrough devices, 155 proposals were submitted at Stage 1, with 23 progressing to Stage 2 and five ultimately expected to receive funding — an overall success rate of approximately 3.2%. The low-value care call received 82 submissions for an expected four funded projects, while the post-infection long-term conditions call received 103 submissions for an expected five, representing success rates of around 5% in both cases.

Catalyze Principal Consultant and Horizon Europe expert Helen Pothuizen reflected on the strength of the results:

“What stands out across these three successes is not only the quality of the project ideas, but also the strength of the consortia behind them. These teams bring together outstanding and complementary scientific, clinical, technological and implementation expertise, with a clear shared ambition to create meaningful impact for patients and healthcare systems.

In calls where as few as one in thirty proposals are funded, bringing all of those elements together in a convincing proposal is essential. These results are a strong recognition of both the quality of the projects and the expertise of the teams that will take them forward.”

Project 1: €8M award to advance multinational clinical studies of orphan and breakthrough devices

Call ID: HORIZON-HLTH-2025-03-IND-03

This €8 million RIA project brings together 15 partners across seven countries to conduct a multinational clinical study of an orphan or breakthrough device. The call also addresses the practical challenges of generating robust clinical evidence for devices that may target small or geographically dispersed patient populations, making multinational collaboration particularly important.

Catalyze consultants Roopashi Saxena and Ita Nudelman highlighted how bringing together perspectives from across the health-innovation value chain was central to developing the proposal:

“The project brings together complementary clinical, technological, health-economic and social-science expertise to design a trial that addresses the evidence needs of patients, clinicians, manufacturers, payers and reimbursement bodies. By integrating perspectives across the health-innovation value chain, the project aims to accelerate the uptake of innovative health technologies in Europe and beyond.”

In line with the call’s aims, this approach will help generate the evidence needed to demonstrate the device’s safety and performance and support its pathway towards wider use in healthcare.

Project 2: €10M award to identify and reduce low-value care across health and care systems

Call ID: HORIZON-HLTH-2026-01-CARE-03

This €10 million RIA project brings together more than 17 partners across over 10 EU countries, combining highly complementary expertise to address the challenge of low-value care in Europe. The call focuses on identifying, reducing and preventing healthcare practices that provide little or no benefit to patients, while improving the quality, efficiency and sustainability of health and care systems.

Catalyze consultants Mithila Burute, Anna Lammerts and Helen Pothuizen highlighted the close collaboration between Catalyze and the consortium throughout the four-month concept and proposal development process:

“This project was a perfect match between Catalyze’s expertise in large Horizon Europe grants and the consortium’s strong mission and deep experience in reducing low-value care in healthcare. What worked especially well was how we complemented each other: Catalyze helped navigate the complexity of the Horizon Europe call, while the consortium brought the field expertise, commitment and the right people to make the vision a reality. Together, we turned a complex and ambitious topic into a strong project with the potential to make a real difference in reducing low-value care across Europe.”

The project takes a holistic approach that addresses not only the call’s expected outcomes, but also the interdependencies between them, with the aim of tackling long-standing challenges across European health and care systems.

Project 3: €8M award to improve the prevention, diagnosis and management of post-infection long-term conditions

Call ID: HORIZON-HLTH-2026-01-DISEASE-03

This €8 million RIA project brings together 15 partners across six countries to advance more precise approaches to understanding, diagnosing and managing post-infection long-term conditions. The call responds to the need for better evidence on why some patients develop persistent symptoms after infection, and how these conditions can be identified, treated and managed more effectively.

Catalyze consultants Asunción Sánchez Ochoa and Lucía Moreno Lama highlighted the project’s end-to-end translational approach as a particular strength:

“What made the project particularly compelling was the way it connected biological discovery directly with clinical action. Rather than stopping at identifying mechanisms or biomarkers, the proposal built a pathway from patient endotyping and AI-supported prediction through to targeted clinical trials, personalised rehabilitation and healthcare implementation. That end-to-end translational approach gives the project the potential to move Long-COVID care from largely symptom-based management towards more precise and personalised treatment.”

In line with the call’s aims, the project will contribute to improving how post-infection long-term conditions are prevented, diagnosed and managed, with the potential to translate new knowledge into more effective and personalised care.