Affordable access

Why does affordable access matter to Global Health EDCTP3?

Affordable access is a core pillar of Global Health EDCTP3. It ensures that the clinical breakthroughs we fund reach the populations they are designed to protect.

Poverty-related infectious diseases affect sub-Saharan Africa disproportionately, and high prices can put life-saving diagnostics, vaccines and treatments out of reach in markets that are commercially unattractive or hard to serve. Affordable access is how we make sure medical solutions translate into real-world impact.

How does Global Health EDCTP3 ensure affordable access?

Our founding regulation requires that products and services developed using the results of our funded clinical studies be made available and accessible to the public on fair and reasonable terms.

This obligation is put into practice in two ways:

• The Access Plan. Research and Innovation Actions (RIAs) must submit a formal, publicly available Access Plan as a project deliverable, setting out how results, such as vaccines or diagnostics, will reach the market affordably in low-resource settings. Projects are encouraged to use strategies such as tiered pricing, non-exclusive licensing, price caps, and technology transfer to regional manufacturers, helping build local production capacity in Africa and shorten supply chains.

  Download the Access Plan template

• Ongoing exploitation obligations. For up to four years after a project ends, participants must use their best efforts to make resulting health technologies broadly available at fair and reasonable conditions. If results are not exploited within a year, participants must use the Horizon Results Platform to find interested parties. If that still doesn't work, and we request it, they must grant non-exclusive licences to organisations that will exploit the results responsibly. These obligations carry over if ownership of the results changes hands.

How does Global Health EDCTP3 follow up on these measures?

Our oversight of the projects’ outcomes continues into further development, market entry and commercialisation. For up to four years after a project ends, Research and Innovation Actions (RIAs) must report annually on the development status and exploitation of their results, so we can check the Access Plan is actually being implemented as products move towards the market.

We also fund Coordination and Support Actions (CSAs) that strengthen national and regional regulatory bodies. By building the capacity of these bodies to review and approve products, we help ensure access is not blocked by administrative backlogs.