A consortium coordinated by the Luxembourg National Research Fund (FNR), together with partners including LIH and IBBL – Integrated BioBank of Luxembourg as well as the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) at the University of Luxembourg, has been successful in Phase 1 of the European Commission’s H2020 programme TEAMING. With the support of international partners, the FNR and the national partners propose to establish a “Centre of Excellence in Digital Health and Personalised Healthcare”. The project – CLINNOVA – is one of only 30 projects to pass Phase 1, out of 208 projects submitted to the Commission.
Digitalisation has the potential to increase the efficiency and transparency in healthcare, as well as to improve the care of patients. Around 10 years ago, the Luxembourgish Government decided on a diversification strategy, which encompasses the life sciences and healthcare domains. The strategic development and the investments in personalised medicine were strong contributors to the expansion of LCSB, as well as to the strengthening of the position of LIH.
In this context, the CLINNOVA consortium is now setting up a strategy for the establishment of a new “Centre of Excellence in Digital Health and Personalised Healthcare” – CLINNOVA. On 26th September 2017 was the official kick-off meeting of the consortium and various stakeholders in the endeavor. Present at the meeting was Luxembourg’s Minister of Health, Mrs Lydia Mutsch, as well as representatives from ministries, hospitals, industry and research, as well as representatives from the international partners. The latter are the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) and the Odense University Hospital (OUH) that will allow the consortium to benefit from the experience Denmark has in setting up modern eHealth infrastructures, and the National Centre for Tumour Diseases (NCT) of the German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ) having strong expertise in oncology.
The Centre will aim to build on the previous investments into fundamental biomedical research and form a bridge to the hospitals in Luxembourg, ensuring that laboratory innovations reach clinical implementation and benefit patients. Having passed phase 1 of H2020 TEAMING, CLINNOVA has received funding from the EU Commission to develop a sound business plan for the phase 2 proposal. If the project is also successful in this phase, financial support will be awarded by H2020 to make CLINNOVA a reality.