Systemic change by streamlined innovation: personalised medicine Novembre 8, 2013

0. Overview 1.Health care challenges 2.Personalised medicines 3.Opportunities for improving the drug development 4.Creating a stimulating ecosystem in Flanders 5.Innovative clusters 6.Personalised medicines: a smart specialisation 7.Conclusions

1. Health care challenges? Context: Brilliant scientific research, never more thorough basic knowledge about mechanisms of health, diseases. Never better technologies for developing new treatments Number of successful clinical studies decreases. Societal challenge: sufficient, effective and affordable care and cure for the ageing society. – Need for more effective medicines and therapies. – Ageing population: expected increase in care and cure needs and costs. Opportunity for improved, innovative development of new drugs.

2. Personalised medicine Medical model: customisation of healthcare  medical decisions, practices, products adapted to the individual patient Use of genetic information to tailor treatments to individual patients. Personalised medicines: opportunity for more effective healthcare.

3. Opportunities for improving drug development Flemish governments approach: streamlined innovation (3) 1.Clustering the available knowhow: Triple helix with societal objectives. – Driver: important societal needs – Prominent role strategic research centres (academia) – Collaboration between academia, clinical centres, government and industry  Government incentives for cluster development

Opportunities for improving drug development (2) 2.Development of a stimulating ecosystem for innovative drug development: “clicking in“ the technologies and the infrastructure to meet the necessary preconditions”.  Flemish bio bank: °2012 Cooperation of clinical research centres, industry and academia Excellently diagnosed patients  Digital Health Innovation Centre: °2014 Clustering the competences about digital medical and care technologies (care and cure)  Supercomputer available: eg for genomics calculations, computer simulations  Nano for health: focus IMEC, strategic research centre: Eg. : development of future diagnostics

Opportunities for improving drug development (3) 3.International ambition, international cooperation – Global societal needs, global market. – necessity to look for niches where Flanders can be competitive in an international environment. – Cooperation to meet the huge challenges. Eg.: - BBMRI: linking the bio banks internationally Joint Programming (eg. JPND),… – Flanders has recently started a cooperation with the Netherlands on personalised care, medtech,… Flanders want to internationally excel in personalised healthcare.

Creating a stimulating ecosystem (4) Innovative programme, tailor-made for innovative drug development – Driver is societal need (effective and affordable cure of patients) – Cooperation academia, clinical centres, industry is requirement – Attention for intellectual property – Use of facilitating tools: high quality bio banks, … – Knowledge development for new scientific disciplines: advanced biostatistics,…

5. Innovative clusters are forming… Observation: specialised clusters, mostly focusing on specific diseases are developing: E.g.: pilot case: neurodegenerative diseases (Alzheimer,…): – Cluster of excellent basic researchers, clinical expertise, industry (drug development, biomarkers, design of complex clinical trials,…) – International cooperation, eg. via Joint Programme Neurodegenerative Diseases. Important interaction with societal stakeholders.

6. Personalised medicine: a real smart specialisation More effective drug development: Based on societal need  Long term global societal and economic “market” Very complex specialisation, based on intellectual property.  Co-creation has important advantages. Cluster development: advantage in the demanding circumstances and streamlined by government

Conclusions: A new smart specialisation is developing in Flanders: -Societal needs as a driver -Ecosystem is important -Can / should be streamlined by the government -Excellent specialised clusters as a result -Flanders wants to excel in the development of personalised medicines -Cooperation on an international scale: open invitation