Tribune du Monde (February 24, 2026), signed by the main learned societies of cardiology, cardiovascular surgery and patient associations.
France, once a pioneer in early access to medical innovations, now faces a significant structural lag. In 2024, only 60% of innovations approved by the EMA were marketed in France, compared with 89% in Germany. For breakthrough medical devices, particularly percutaneous valves, the lag sometimes exceeds two years compared to neighboring European countries.
The identified causes: excessive red tape, evaluation criteria ill-suited to disruptive innovations, failure to take real-world data into account, and underestimation of medium-term efficiency gains.
The cost is threefold: human (patients exposed to less effective or more invasive alternatives, with complication rates potentially 10 times higher), financial (the cost of treating valvular heart disease amounted to 1.1 billion euros for the national health insurance system as of 2016), and strategic (loss of expertise among French medical teams, growing dependence on foreign expertise) .
The current situation is making the matter even more urgent: the United States is speeding up access to treatments, while Europe is launching a major cardiovascular initiative modeled on the U.S. “Priority Breakthrough Pathway.” The signatories are calling for an urgent overhaul of the French access system so that France can regain its status as a pioneering and demanding nation.