Beating for Change: Advancing Cardiovascular Health Across the EU

Every heartbeat tells a story.
And across Europe, too many of those stories end too soon...

Heart and blood vessel diseases are the leading cause of death in the European Union. Beyond heart attacks and strokes, they include inherited conditions, often silent, often diagnosed too late. Together, these diseases take 1.7 million lives every year and affect 62 million people across the EU. That means nearly every extended family is touched by illness, by loss, or by lives forever changed.

But the impact goes far beyond hospitals and statistics. Cardiovascular diseases shape everyday reality: they limit mobility, shorten careers, force early retirement, and reduce both quality of life and life expectancy. The cost is human and economic, amounting to more than €282 billion each year.

Europe has the knowledge, the talent, and the tools to do better. Yet major challenges remain: late diagnosis, unequal access to care, limited patient empowerment, fragmented support, suboptimal disease management, and underinvestment in research and innovation. These are not just medical problems. They are systemic ones, and they demand action at the European level.

In response, the European Commission launched the Safe Hearts Plan in December, a bold step toward transforming heart health across Europe. The plan places prevention, early detection, equity, and innovation at its core, with special attention to vulnerable groups such as children, young people, and women.

This edition of our Science Club brings together voices from the front lines of change: policy leaders, clinicians, and scientists, who are redefining how we understand, prevent, and treat heart and blood vessel diseases.

Because protecting hearts is not only a medical mission. It’s a societal one.

• Prof. Stefan Janssens is Professor Emeritus of Cardiology at the University of Leuven and served as Chairman of the Department of Cardiovascular Diseases at the University Hospitals Leuven. His clinical interests include cardiac intensive care, and his research focuses on translational cardiovascular studies, particularly myocardial dysfunction, cardiac repair mechanisms, and regenerative therapies. Prof. Janssens has outstanding achievements in influential clinical research, including work on stem-cell therapy for heart attack patients. He led numerous cutting-edge research and clinical projects, including collaborations with Prof Béla Merkely, the Director of the Heart and Vascular Centre at Semmelweis University.
• Csaba Kontor is an expert in health and pharmaceutical regulation with extensive experience in European health policy and legislation. During his tenure as Hungarian Health Attaché, he was involved in negotiations on several major EU health law initiatives, including the revision of the general pharmaceutical legislation, the European Health Data Space (EHDS), and the Regulation on Substances of Human Origin (SoHO). During the Hungarian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, he also oversaw the adoption of the Council Conclusions on cardiovascular health. He currently serves as a Policy Assistant in the Cabinet of EU Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi and will introduce the scientific lectures with a presentation outlining the European Safe Hearts Plan.
• Dr Péter Pokreisz is a Senior Scientist at the Cardiovascular Institute of the Center for Biomedical Research and Translational Surgery at the Medical University of Vienna. He was a PhD student and postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Prof. Janssens. He was also a member of the LKI – KU Leuven Cancer Institute, where he conducted translational and preclinical cardiovascular scientific research. His current research focusses on cardiac dysfunction in disease models and on cardiovascular mechanisms in both basic and translational research settings.

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