For the decade and a half before, the sector was covered by various state and deputy state secretaries reporting to, most latterly, the Minister of Interior; now, there is a dedicated department whose boss is one of the 16 cabinet ministers who sit around Péter Magyar’s table.
Put another way, healthcare, at least in theory, now has a policy voice as strong as that of defense, economy, energy or any of the other departments led by a cabinet minister. The message that sends to the public is simple: health is now a priority.
“It definitely provides an opportunity for how health and healthcare is supported in Hungary,” agrees Konrád Keresztes, health policy and communications lead for MSD Hungary.
“Right now, we are certain that healthcare has become a priority for the government. I think that also puts the whole of society in a different mindset, because now we know that it’s not just about different investments across industries; it’s also an investment in the people,” he adds. Keresztes returns to this point several times in our conversation.
“Health is not a cost, but an investment in our future, and we have to take it seriously because health is not given to everyone by default; we have to work for it. I think that many people fail to understand that it’s our own responsibility to work for our health with the right nutrition, sleeping, physical activities, and additional prevention strategies,” he insists.
“I think the message now from the new government is that this is something that we have to talk about. Right now, as we said before, we have an opportunity where healthcare is a priority, but we must support and act on it together through international expertise and facilitate scientific exchange.”
What Keresztes is pointing to is a need – and a willingness – for the healthcare industry to meet the government halfway. He notes the health ministry’s appointment of three specialist state secretaries: Lívia Ilku, responsible for public administration; Zoltán Vokó, for public health; and Péter Becságh, for digital health.
All three are healthcare professionals, with expertise in their respective fields of responsibility. Barely a month into her appointment, Ilku initiated a roundtable meeting with stakeholders to discuss industry questions, issues, problems, and challenges, and to seek suggestions from both pharma and medical technology.
“It’s very important moving forward overall to have an open and transparent dialogue about healthcare in Hungary because, for the sake of our patients, it is of the utmost importance that we have people who listen, partner and take appropriate action,” says Keresztes.
In Hungary, the data shows four priority areas where substantial unmet health needs remain for the government to consider.
One priority is cardiovascular. The European Commission has passed the EU Safe Hearts Plan, which must be translated into individual member-state legislation, with the goal of decreasing premature deaths from cardiovascular diseases by 25% by 2035 through prevention, early diagnosis, and early treatment.
“A national cardiovascular plan could provide a framework for aligning prevention, early diagnosis, treatment, and improvement of patient pathways. It is already a top priority of the European Union. Not only because it’s a formal requirement by the EU, but because cardiovascular disease is still one of the largest causes of patient death globally,” Keresztes argues. According to the OECD’s Country Health Profile 2025, Hungary has one of the highest rates of avoidable mortality among member countries of the organization, a substantial proportion of which is attributable to cardiovascular causes.
One concept for consideration is prevention and treatment, including early screening for diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular health. An example is examination and data collection regarding LDL-C (low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, which primarily transports cholesterol to the cells, but when it remains persistently elevated in the blood, can ultimately lead to severe, sometimes fatal, cardiovascular events without warning signs) to focus on preventing and treating conditions caused by fats in the blood that lead to abnormal cholesterol and triglyceride levels.
Cancer remains the second leading cause of death, both in the European Union and in Hungary. In the EU, for example, it accounts for approximately 1.1 million deaths per year, according to the OECD/European Union’s EU Country Cancer Profiles Synthesis Report 2025.
“The cancer situation in Hungary has been addressed in the national cancer plan, but due to advancements in the EU Beating Cancer Plan, further discussion locally could be considered,” Keresztes says. “A very positive direction for the government is to talk about and create action plans and suggestions for early diagnosis and treatment, because we see that’s an important unmet need right now that could really have an impact for patients.”
MSD is widely recognized as a research-driven biopharmaceutical company that develops innovative medicines and vaccines to improve patient health. Equally important, however, is the data research work it conducts with healthcare experts. A recent study looked at how public health interventions around stopping smoking in Hungary impacted the death rate from smoking-related cancers from 2011 to 2023.
Put crudely, stop people smoking, or limit their exposure to it, and you may greatly reduce instances of smoking-related tumors, such as lung, laryngo, esophageal, and bladder cancers. But to bring the conversation full circle, detecting and treating cancers as early as possible also has a dramatic effect in terms of eliminating cancer, or at least reducing it to the chronic level, extending not just life but also offering gains in productive work years for patients and caregivers who would otherwise have to give up or cut back on work.
Allied to that is another area where MSD is placing a lot of emphasis: patient pathways. Specifically, the goal is to make them as short as possible (the longer the pathway, the greater the possibility of patients being lost in the system), but also to make them more regimented, with clear targets that must be met for tracing, checking and treating patients.
Remember our old friend low-density lipoprotein cholesterol? MSD went out and discussed cardiovascular medicine with several specialist doctors and discovered insufficient collection of LDL-C data from patients. Yet, every patient who has had acute coronary syndrome should rapidly achieve and maintain recommended LDL-C targets. That should be followed by a specific LDL-C checkup three months after the cardiac event, with a lipid status assessment every six months.
In other words, there is much that could be done that could have a profound impact on improving health outcomes by ensuring the system is much more joined up, that hospitals and clinics talk to GPs and vice versa, and that data is exchanged and regularly updated according to a defined schedule that everyone, from doctor to patient to specialist, can understand and follow.
“There may be opportunities to strengthen or improve consistent patient pathways in practice,” says Keresztes.
He adds that MSD would welcome the opportunity to support the establishment of a health innovation coalition, where associations, government, and industry partners could come together to discuss healthcare issues, in line with the ongoing open and transparent discussion.
“It’s about bringing everyone to the same table. We could have a single forum to discuss the most important challenges, such as access to medicine, investment in healthcare, how it could benefit patients, and what new strategies could be developed,” Keresztes argues.
“Most important is to keep this dialogue ongoing and to establish this health innovation coalition where we could address these topics for a broader audience. Based on those discussions, we can develop different action plans to address these issues,” he says. “I think there’s openness for this type of thing; obviously, we’re here to support in any way possible.”
The pharma firm also wants to see broader ecosystem development to redefine collaboration between industrial partners.
“There are industry leaders and major multinational companies such as MSD. We have experience; we have multinational reach; we have affiliates worldwide, and we have seen a few things that could be used in Hungary as well,” he notes.
“At the other end of the spectrum would be early-stage researchers, academic personnel who are just about to start something new on their own, and then local startups. We need to redefine how these different actors can work together. These partners can come together to support innovations to reach patients and create a sustainable health ecosystem,” Keresztes concludes.
This article was made possible by MSD Pharma Hungary Kft., 1095 Budapest, Lechner Ödön fasor 10/B, +36-1-888-5300, [email protected], date of closing: 19/08/2026. HU-NON-02401
This article was first published in the Budapest Business Journal print issue of September 4, 2026.
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