SIVI participates in the Kickoff Meeting of the I3 InnoMedCatalyst project in Romania

Cluster SIVI participated in the Kickoff Meeting of the I3 InnomedCatalyst project that took place on 22 and 23 October in Piatra Neamt (Romania). A first contact between the entities that are part of this initiative that aims to improve the regional innovation capacity of the ecosystems of precision and personalized medicine throughout Europe.

Through I3 InnoMedCatalyst, start-ups, spin-offs, scale-ups, innovators and healthcare providers aim to increase their capabilities to develop, test and refine digital health solutions as business cases, while preparing a series of cross-regional investment projects ready for further investment and exploitation by 2026.

Artificial Inteligence (IA) and digital health have different roles and approaches in digital precision medicine. The former is mainly concerned with the intelligent processing of this information, transforming it into person-centred therapeutic decisions and activations. The second is concerned with transmitting the information, taking it (also from the patient via sensors), and transporting/delivering it to the decision and activation nodes of the healthcare system, and also through the development of innovative devices.

Supporting medical and health technology companies that are developing precision medicine solutions through AI and Digital Health brings with it a number of challenges that span a range of areas, including regulatory, technological, financial and ethical considerations.

The current consortium consists of 13 European partners in 10 regions: North East Regional Development Agency (RO), North East Regional Innovative Cluster for Structural and Molecular Imaging (IMAGO-MOL) (RO), InPulse Partners SRL (RO), Cluster LifeScience Kraków (KLSK), The Health Cluster Portugal (HCP) (PT), Start up Madeira, The Association (Cluster) Innovative Solutions for Independent Living (ES), HBIO (GR), Health and Life Sciences Cluster Bulgaria (HLSC) (BG), Medvia (BE), Cluster-ER Health (IT), Biocat (ES) y European Regional and Local Health Autorities (EU).

Kickoff Meeting: Tuesday 22 October

The Kickoff Meeting started on Tuesday with a general presentation by Vasile Asandei, Director General of the East Regional Development Agency, in which he welcomed the participants and gave an overview of the InnoMedCatalyst project.

This was followed by the presentation of Alina Capitanu, who gave us a general introduction to the InnoMedCatalyst project and in particular talked about the general objective, the specific objectives, the regions involved, the work packages, the Romanian team, etc.

After the presentation of Alina Capitanu came the explanation of Kirill Dimanopoulos about the I3 instrument, by which the InnoMedCatalyst project is funded, and he specified important details of the project funding.

Then came the presentation of the rubikhub where the project members were hosted for the meeting, with an explanation of their concrete activity and the promotion of some of the start-ups they support.

Then it was the turn of some innovative companies, which spoke about their projects. Representatives of APOLLO, SYNAPTIQ (Sabau Rocana), CARESHAPER (Valentin Stancui), RAYSCAPE (Stefan Larca) and the University of Medicine and Pharmacy ‘Grigore T. Popa’ of Iasi (MAVIS Artificial Heart Project and TwinHeart) were present.

This was followed by a presentation of the various participants of the InnoMedCatalyst project: NERDA (Romania, Alina Capitanu and Smaranda Balut), IMAGO-MOL (Romania, Carmen Mihai and Carmen Boiciuc), HLSC (Bulgaria, Kristina Eskenazi and Dimitar Dimitrov), MEDVIA (Belgium, Johan Lecocq and Ines Verbaendert), Cluster Helth of Italy (Italy, Sauro Vicini and Clémence Foltz), EUREGHA (Bélgia, Michele Calabro and Marco Di Donato), Cluster SIVI (Mª Pilar Armero and César Pardo), HCP (Portugal, Joana Feijó and Sara Santos), HBIO (Greece, Stamatiki Kritas), KLSK (Poland, Kazimierz Murzyn and Emma Harting), BIOCAT (Spain, Montserrat Deband and María Cejas), Startup Madeira (Portugal, Carlos Soares Lopes, Inés Rodrigues and Liliana Pimenta), InPulse (Romania, Daniel Cosnita and Flaviu Iorgulescu).

Finally, the representative of the Life Science Cluster Krakow spoke about the Life Science Open Space, a social network for community members in Europe.

Wednesday 23 October

1. Project management, led by NERDA (Alina Capitanu).
2. Regional value chain analysis in digital precision and personalised medicine, led by HLSC (Kristina Eskenazi and Dimitar Dinitrov).
3. Innovation capacity and knowledge transfer, led by MEDVIA (Johan Lecocq).
4. Accelerator programme to increase the capacity of innovation actors, led by Cluster Industrie della Salute e del Benessere (Sauro Vicini, Clémence Foltz and Erica).
5. Roadmaps towards a regional innovative ecosystem in 5P Precision Medicine and Interregional Investment Project Portfolio, led by BIOCAT (Montserrat Daban and Maria).
6. Visibility, communication, dissemination and exploitation, led by HBIO (Stamatiki Kritas).

Later in the afternoon, there was a cultural visit to the cities of Piatra Neamt and Iasi, including a visit to some museums such as the Cucuteni Neolithic Art Museum. The meeting concluded with a pleasant and friendly dinner.