Providing the best medical treatment for everyone - this vision is becoming an increasing reality. Thanks to new technologies and artificial intelligence, personalised medicine is making enormous progress. The PRECISEU research project - short for "PeRsonalised medicine Empowerment Connecting Innovation ecoSystems across EUrope" - aims to connect innovation ecosystems across Europe. The aim is to make efficient progress towards personalised healthcare, transfer practices and solutions from region to region and disseminate innovations in cutting-edge healthcare technology based on advanced therapy medicinal products and health data across Europe. The research project is funded by the Horizon Europe funding programme with a total of 22.73 million euros.

Health data as the basis for personalised medicine

As one of 25 project partners from eleven European countries, BIOPRO Baden-Württemberg is actively involved in the research project. Among other things, BIOPRO will be involved in mapping and evaluating the readiness and maturity of regional ecosystems in relation to the planned European Health Data Space (EHDS). The PRECISEU project will focus on the main aspects identified as barriers to the secondary use of health data in the partner regions. This means clarifying how and where the data is stored, how it is organised and processed and how interoperability between different systems can be ensured. This work package will also provide guidelines for joint interregional projects within the PRECISEU innovation support programme on the use of health-related data for personalised medicine.

Medicinal products for advanced therapies

Another task of BIOPRO deals with advancing therapy medicinal products, or ATMPs for short. ATMPs are innovative drugs that enable the targeted treatment and, in the best case, the cure of diseases, but cause high costs for healthcare systems due to the very long development times, high development risks, expensive in vivo clinical trials, manufacturing costs and complex authorisation procedures. Within the PRECISEU research project, BIOPRO, together with other partner organisations, will develop a multi-stakeholder infrastructure that can be adapted to the specific needs of ATMP developers and at the same time is based on a set of standardised tools or techniques that allow streamlining the development process, reducing costs and increasing efficiency.

In the future, personalised medicine will play an increasingly important role in medical care. By using personalised diagnostics and customised therapeutics, patients can be treated in a targeted manner, side effects can be avoided and the efficiency of healthcare can be increased.

Innovation through knowledge and technology transfer

"Although considerable progress has been made in recent years, personalised medicine still faces major challenges such as data protection issues, complex manufacturing processes, costs and accessibility. This is precisely where the EU project PRECISEU comes in," explains Prof Dr Ralf Kindervater, Managing Director of BIOPRO Baden-Württemberg. "The collaboration between the partners involved aims to reduce complexity and costs through the development and validation of new methods and to lead to innovative advances in personalised medicine through the exchange of knowledge and technologies. BIOPRO is looking forward to working with the various partners in this innovative and forward-looking EU project."

The EU project was launched in June 2024 and is scheduled to run for five years. In addition to BIOPRO, BioRN Cluster Management GmbH in Heidelberg is also involved as a partner organisation from Germany. Together with BioRN, BIOPRO will join forces in Baden-Württemberg to bring research and companies together and advance personalised medicine in the state and within the EU project. Thanks to BIOPRO's involvement in PRECISEU, Baden-Württemberg has also been awarded the "Regional Innovation Valley" label by the European Commission as part of the European Innovation Ecosystems Work Programme. Below you will find an overview of all the organisations involved in PRECISEU:

Organizer: Organisation BioCat from Spain

Partners: 11 countries (incl. Ukraine as associated partner) with 25 organisations.

Spain: Biocat La Fundacio Bioregio De Catalunya, Departament De Salut - Generalitat De Catalunya, Barcelona Supercomputing Centre Centro Nacion, Plataforma De Organizaciones De Pacientes, Agencia Per A La Competitivitat De La Empresa (ACCIO), Astrazeneca Farmacéutica Spain, S.A..

Romania: Agentia Pentru Dezvoltare Regionalanord-Est, Asociatia Digital Innovation Zone Zona De Inova, Clusterul Regional Inovativ De Imagistica Molecu.

Germany: BioRN Cluster Management GmbH, BIOPRO Baden-Württemberg GmbH.

Bulgaria: Biotehnologichen I Zdraven Klaster, Sofia Municipal Privatisation & Investment Agency.

Italy: Clust Er Industrie Della Salute E Del Benessere, Regione Emilia Romagna, Art-Er-Societa Consortile Per Azioni.

Belgium: Vlaamse Gewest, Medvia.

Lithuania: Viesoji Istaiga Inovaciju Agentura.

Sweden: Brg, Business Region Goteborg Ab., Sahlgrenska Science Park Ab.

Netherlands: Eatris Eric.

Greece: Idryma Technologias Kai Erevnas, Kriti.

Ukraine: Rivne Interregional Medical Cluster.