Better safe than sorry

As healthcare costs rise globally, prevention is increasingly recognized as an effective way to improve outcomes and control expenditures. Healthcare expenditures as a percentage of GDP are trending higher in developed countries reaching levels necessitating serious action. In 2024, developed countries allocated 9.3% of their GDP to healthcare on average, a jump from 8.8% in 2019. The most obvious remedy against soaring healthcare costs is avoiding becoming ill. Although this may sound obvious, there is in fact a lot that can be done to prevent people from getting ill beyond vaccines, the most cost-effective preventive measure ever created. Many illnesses can be traced back to either unhealthy or risky behavior or a genetic predisposition to certain diseases. We believe an important way to get more “bang for our buck” in healthcare is through preventive care i.e., more spending and focus on preventing diseases instead of reacting to diseases with expensive drugs, hospital stays or long-term care. The World Health Organization (WHO) and major economic consultancies estimate a return of 1:5 to 1:19 for every euro spent on preventative health.

Source: OECD, 2025.