We participated in the 62nd Munich Security Conference (MSC), held from 13 to 15 February 2026. This edition displayed the forum moving towards acomprehensive vision of security that now explicitly includes health, a pillar only since 2016, without displacing its core focus on defense, alliances and great‑power competition.
Health at the MSC is framed as a vulnerability that adversaries can exploit, through attacks on health infrastructure or disruption of medical supply chains; as a resilience asset, with robust health systems, data and surveillance capacity as core components of national preparedness; and as a field where technological breakthroughs such vaccines, AI and biomanufacturing raise both opportunities and biosecurity risks. The topic’s inclusion in the MSC agenda accelerated after Covid‑19 pandemic, when the potential consequences of such a global health emergency became painfully clear to all.
Health at MSC 2026: modest but strategic
The 62nd MSC brought together more than sixty heads of state and government and several dozen foreign and defense ministers, consolidating its status as the premier transatlantic and global security forum. The political spotlight remained on geopolitics: keynote speeches by French president Macron, German chancellor Merz and US secretary of state Rubio shaped debates on Europe’s security architecture, relations with Washington and the future of the global order.
Still, notable health‑related actors present this year included theGerman federal minister of health Nina Warken, senior executives from pharmaceutical manufacturers Sandoz and Bayer, and leaders of major global‑health institutions such asGavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the Wellcome Trust and WHO’s Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence. Their presence illustrates the gradualconvergence between health policy, security thinking and innovation agendas.
Thematic focus: biosecurity, systems under fire and the 100 Days Mission
At MSC 2026, health discussions focused around three interlinked themes: thehealth systems in conflict, theacceleration of pandemic preparedness, and theprotection of health as critical infrastructure. Across formats bringing together health, security and military stakeholders, a consistent message emerged: health systems are now treated ascritical infrastructurewhose failure can trigger or amplify security crises, making their resilience a core concern for defense and foreign‑policy communities.
TheGerman Armed Forces and the World Health Summitorganized a side event, with Minister Warken on the panel. The session highlighted how attacks on hospitals, workers and access to care destabilize societies and underscored theneed for whole-of-government preparednessthat connects public health, civil protection, security services and local actors.
The MSC formalized their partnership with theCoalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI)to bring epidemic and pandemic risk into the heart of high‑level security debates, positioningbiosecurityas a shared responsibility of health, defense, finance and foreign‑policy actors. At the core of this collaboration is the100 Days Mission, an initiative led by CEPI and endorsed by G7 and G20 leaders that aims to ensure the world can develop safe, effective vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics within 100 days of detecting a new biological threat. In a high‑level session, they explored howrapid-response capabilitiescan be embedded into national security strategies and sustained financing frameworks, while managing thegovernance risks of new biotechnologies.
Pharma’s under-representation – and the case for deeper engagement
Pharmaceutical companies remain under‑represented at the MSC compared with technology, finance or defense, even as medicines and vaccines are increasingly recognized as strategic assets in an era of pandemics and geopolitical fragmentation. This is at odds with the sector’s exposure to systemic risk: production of active pharmaceutical ingredients is heavily concentrated in a few geographies – particularly China and India – which creates structural vulnerabilities, as demonstrated by Covid‑related shutdowns and recent debates on how far US and European health systems overreliance on Chinese suppliers for antibiotics and other essential drugs.
For pharma leaders,deeper engagement with the MSC could offer a way to move from being passive takers of this new security environment to active shapers of it, by addressing supply‑chain resilience, biosecurity and health‑system preparedness alongside foreign and defense policymakers. It provides access to the actors who define the rules of the game, such as deciding on stockpiling, diversification, IP, investment and pandemic‑financing frameworks. It can also be a platform to argue for predictable, rules‑based approaches that strengthen resilience without undermining innovation.
The future of health at the MSC
Looking ahead, the signals from 2026 suggest thathealth will remain a core, but still not central, pillar of the MSC’s human-security agenda, with pandemics, biosecurity and health‑system resilience increasingly discussed alongside traditional defence topics rather than in isolation. The formal partnership between CEPI and the MSC around the 100 Days Mission, and the prominence of side events exploring how to embed rapid‑response capabilities into national security strategies and financing, point to a future in which biologicalrisk and health infrastructure are treated as enduring security priorities, provided that governments, industry and global‑health institutions are willing to invest political capital to move health from the margins of side events into the core strategic conversation.