European health companies to watch in 2026

The companies behind Europe’s $703B health sector: the largest by value, the nine bought for $1.5B or more since 2024, the 57 European companies on Dealroom’s hottest AI healthtech map, and 46 young companies to watch.

By Yoram Wijngaarde and Dealroom Next-Gen API ·

The largest companies

Biotech and pharma companies make up $566B of the $703B that Europe’s venture-backed health companies are worth. Listed drug developers such as argenx and Genmab are the largest single companies; most of the value sits with hundreds of smaller ones. Among private companies the most valuable are ŌURA ($10.9B), Isomorphic Labs ($8.4B), Neko Health ($7.0B), Doctolib ($3.9B) and CMR Surgical ($3.0B).

Biotech and pharma companies make up $566B of the $703B

Latest valuation by segment and company, listed, private and acquired; each company counted once

Source: Dealroom.co

The ones that were bought

Since 2024, nine European health companies have been bought by drug or medtech companies for $1.5B or more. The largest was Merck & Co’s $10.0B purchase of Verona Pharma, which makes an inhaled treatment for chronic lung disease. Four of the nine started as spinouts from universities or research institutes. Six of the buyers are from outside Europe: four from the United States, one from Australia and one from Japan.

Six of the nine European health companies sold for $1.5B or more since 2024 went to buyers outside Europe

Acquisitions by drug and medtech companies since January 2024, by price paid

Buyer outside Europe Buyer in Europe

Source: Dealroom.co

AI health companies

Dealroom’s hottest AI healthtech companies map lists the 203 private AI health companies with the highest Dealroom Signal across 18 segments, worldwide. 57 are headquartered in Europe, 20 of them in the United Kingdom; 123 are in the United States. They range from AI that writes up clinicians’ notes, such as Nabla, Tandem Health and voize, to drug discovery companies such as Isomorphic Labs and Chemify. A separate landscape of AI in health in Europe covers the wider field.

57 of the 203 companies on Dealroom’s hottest AI healthtech map are European

Private AI health companies with the highest Dealroom Signal in each segment, HQ in Europe

Clinicians and health systems

Patients and consumers

Diagnostics and devices

Drug discovery and life sciences

Source: Dealroom.co

Young companies to watch

The landscape below shows 46 European health companies founded since 2018, picked from the 400 that score highest on Dealroom Signal, a rating of a company’s growth, team and timing. The 8 marked 🔥 score highest while still early, with $50M or less raised.

46 young European health companies to watch

Founded since 2018, by subsector. Selected using Dealroom Signal.

AI drug discovery and trials

New medicines

Prevention and longevity

AI for clinicians

Devices and diagnostics

Care delivery and patient platforms

Source: Dealroom.co

Italy’s health startups

The largest recent Italian rounds went to spinouts in Milan, such as AAVantgarde Bio and NanoPhoria, and to MMI in Pisa, which builds robots for microsurgery. In Turin, Kither Biotech was spun out of the University of Turin.

Six Italian health companies with recent rounds or listings

Selected Italian health companies

Source: Dealroom.co

Dealroom tags used

Data and method

Source: Dealroom, retrieved 2026-10-06, USD. Healthtech is Dealroom’s Health industry (taxonomy 125403), which includes the sub-industries BioTechnology, Pharmaceutical, Medical Devices and Health Platform (digital health). Europe is the Europe continent location; Italy is the country. Venture capital is rounds flagged as venture rounds, for venture-backed companies, by company headquarters. Value is the sum of the latest valuations of venture-backed health companies founded since 1990 and not closed, including listed companies at market value; the 2026 bar is the latest. 2026 covers January to September, compared with the same months of 2025; rounds carry month precision. The 2026 annual pace scales January to September by twelve ninths; it is an estimate, not a forecast. Subsectors are Dealroom sector tags inside Health, chosen from every tag with $250M or more in January 2025 to September 2026, leaving out programme, list and country tags, with overlapping tags merged; they are compared with January 2023 to September 2024. AI is Dealroom’s Artificial Intelligence technology tag. Round-size bands count 2021–2025 rounds with a disclosed amount. The United States uses the same rules with the US country location. Country figures use company headquarters; per-person figures divide the 2021–2025 yearly average by population from Dealroom location data. The value treemap puts each company in one segment, in the order biotech and pharma, medical devices, digital health, other, so segments add up to the total; companies too small to label are unnamed blocks, counted in “Other”, and the finely gridded block is every company below the largest 600 in its segment. Acquisitions are exits of $1.5B or more since January 2024 bought by drug or medtech companies; the buyer is taken from the source Dealroom records on each deal. Synthon, sold for about $2.2B in December 2024 to Goldman Sachs Alternatives, a private-equity buyer, is excluded. AtaiBeckley is recorded on Dealroom as ATAI Life Sciences. Spinouts follow Dealroom’s spinout flag. The companies to watch were picked from the 400 operational, venture-backed European health companies founded since 2018 with the highest Dealroom Signal, leaving out companies outside human health and those without disclosed funding. 🔥 marks companies with Signal 92 or higher (or the three highest at 85 or higher) that have raised $50M or less, are not unicorns and have not exited.