Blog

On 14 and 15 June, the Clinnova partners met in Belval, Luxembourg, for the third consortium meeting of the project. In addition, the Clinnova advisory board, comprised of six international experts on digital health and personalised medicine, joined on 14 June to hear about the latest status of the project and provide their critical feedback.

Over the day, the Clinnova partners presented the overall strategy of the project, and how Clinnova will drive the adoption of digital health and personalised medicine in Luxembourg. In further presentations, the topics dove deep into how research and innovation will play a role in the proposed Centre of Excellence, building on the existing strengths of Luxembourg in the areas of biomedical and data-driven research in order to provide value to patients, society and our other stakeholders.

The advisory board all agreed that Clinnova was a unique opportunity for Luxembourg and a worthy proposal for a TEAMING project, as the timing is perfect for digital health on a European landscape. However, it was clear that the consortium still has work to do, as the clock ticks towards the 15 November deadline. On the second day, the Clinnova partners from Luxembourg, Denmark and Germany met to discuss the feedback and recommendations from the advisory board, and to sharpen the project into the final phase of business plan preparation.

On December 14^th and 15^th the Clinnova Consortium members met at the DKFZ in Heidelberg, Germany, for their second Consortium meeting. The main topics on the agenda were the further definition of the scientific strategy of the Centre of Excellence as well as the organizational model Clinnova could have in the future.

20 participants from the NCT, CIMT, LIH, the University of Luxembourg and FNR were involved in the fruitful discussions to help further cristalize the vision of what Clinnova would look like in the future. Building on existing excellence in Luxembourg in preclinical research and bioinformatics and data analytics, Clinnova will link to the excellence in translational cancer research at DKFZ as well as the expertise of the Odense University hospital of bringing advanced digital tools to patients. Data analytics and integration of data from different sources (clinical, molecular, mobile sensors etc) will be at the core of Clinnva. The clinical focus will be on chronic diseases of the nervous system, in particular multiple sclerosis, as well as on cancers, with a focus on brain and gastrointestinal cancers.

Consortium members also met with representatives of the BioRN Cluster as well as the BioMedX incubator to get inspired by the successful economic valorisation and the development of a prospering biotech ecosystem in the Heidelberg region.