Life sciences
Piemonte the laboratory of P4 medicine
In the north-west of Italy the medical technologies of the future are being developed
The medicine of the future will be Predictive, Preventive, Personalized and Participatory and will change our approach to care. The new scenarios opened up by the P4 Medicine represent an important challenge for the life sciences sector, a challenge that Piemonte, a region in the north-west of Italy, is ready to face thanks to the exceptional scientific and technological wealth of its territory. The Piemonte hospital system is among the first in size and performance in Europe and is a reference point for the most complex medical cases with international excellence in the fields of transplants, oncology and cardiology. This is an ideal ecosystem for the medicine of the future also thanks to the perfect integration with the world of academic research that in Piemonte, in the biomedical field, is at the forefront for quality and quantity of results.
The P4 medicine requires the integration of diversified skills in the development of therapeutic treatments of the latest generation. Piemonte’s research centres - large multinationals as well as small and medium-sized enterprises - and the health system form an integrated and complete ecosystem dedicated to innovation, education and technology transfer in the field of life sciences.
To support these initiatives, Regione Piemonte has promoted, with the support of the ROP-ERDF 2014-2020 programmes, the Health and Well-being Technology Platform, a programme worth almost 50 million public and private investments and also involving important international players. In this context funds were allocated to projects such as ReHome, which aims at the implementation of ICT solutions for remote rehabilitation, and CANP dedicated to the development of innovative technologies for home hospitalization, two emblematic examples of the personalized approach of the medicine of the future, increasingly oriented to reconcile the quality of life with the process of rehabilitation and care. The program also includes two projects aimed at the use of Big Data in the medical field: BIO-e-MAGOaims to use databases and artificial intelligence for the diagnosis and personalized screening of cancer diseases, while DEFLeCTaims to create a platform for the harmonization of different data to be used in the diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer. Dealing with prediction, which is typical of the P4 medicine, and in addition to Big Data, the importance of Imaging techniques - which find a high level of specialization in Piemonte - will be increasingly important. The University of Torino, with its Centre for Molecular Biotechnology, is the Italian hub of the European infrastructure Euro-BioImaging, while the region is also home to the leading Italian company im3D which designs, develops, manufactures and markets medical devices used in medical imaging diagnostics.
The Innovation Hubs promoted by Regione Piemonte and the business incubators are also fundamental in the process of technology transfer. Created by Regione Piemonte as part of the ROP-ERDF 2007-2013 programme and coordinated by the Bioindustry Park, the BioPmed Innovation Hub plays a primary role in life sciences. It supports the collaboration between companies and universities and over the years this strategy has led to the realisation of projects such as Epatocare and DORA, both oriented towards the prediction of diseases, and the W.D. Plate project which responds to the demand for personalized medicine with less invasive treatments of fractures of the lower limbs thanks to an implant that can be adapted to the different stages of the course of the illness with the simple help of a wireless control.
If, as Hippocrates said, "not only the doctor, but also the patient, bystanders and external things must be ready to do the things that must be done", Piemonte is definitely the right place to be to guide the transition to the new systemic conception of medicine.
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