Catalonia leads a €23 million European project for personalized medicine and advanced therapies

The president of the Government of Catalonia, Pere Aragonès, unveiled yesterday Catalonia's participation in the Europe-wide PRECISEU project (Personalised Medicine Empowerment Connecting Innovation Ecosystems Across Europe).

The PRECISEU project is allocated a budget of nearly €23 million for the next five years. The funding is split evenly between the European Commission and the budgets of the participating European regions, which include 25 partners from 12 regions across ten member states (Spain, Germany, Belgium, Bulgaria, Romania, Italy, Lithuania, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Greece), as well as one country associated with the Horizon Europe program (Ukraine).

“This project will position Catalonia as one of the most representative health innovation ecosystems in Europe”

Manel Balcells, Health Minister of the Government of Catalonia

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Catalonia is the region with the highest number of participants in the project, with the Department of Health, ACCIÓ-Catalonia Trade & Investment, the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, AstraZeneca, and Biocat, who is the project coordinator.

PRECISEU is an ambitious initiative to promote personalized medicine and advanced therapies in Europe, selected as one of the five winning projects in the competitive Regional Innovation Valleys (RIV) call of European innovation ecosystems, through which the European Commission has designated a total of €54 M. It is the sole project to achieve this recognition.

Pere Aragonès said that projects like this are "the best example of why investing in science is the best way to improve people's lives" since "science, however much it may be, is a tool at the service of people." The head of the Executive has celebrated that Catalonia is leading a pioneering project worldwide "that will contribute to accelerating the implementation of personalized medicine at the European level decisively" and believes that the future of medicine is in "the adaptation of treatments to each person, tailored to our needs," he rearmed.

Aragonès referred to the European commitment to arming that "Catalonia aspires to be able to contribute to facing the great global challenges with all the peoples and nations of Europe," and for this reason, PRECISEU allows "joining forces and working together with other European peoples and nations." The President of the Government of Catalonia assured that the PRECISEU project "is the result of the commitment to science and research" and thanked the European Commission for "the commitment and trust it has shown in the entire ecosystem of knowledge in Catalonia."

The leadership of this project means that, according to Aragonès, Catalonia is consolidating "as one of the hubs of reference in health innovation on the European continent." He listed the entire ecosystem the country already has around the health sciences, such as the Marenostrum 5 or the new National Center for Advanced Therapies, research centers and groups with a high level of excellence, or the more than 1,400 companies dedicated to innovation in Health & Life Sciences sector.

The Catalan Minister of Health, Manel Balcells, said the Government of Catalonia firmly positioned itself as "one of the main centers of healthcare innovation in Europe. It has made a strong commitment to research and innovation with advanced therapies. The Department of Health plays a particularly important role due to its important influence and transforming capacity". He added that the PRECISEU project "will position Catalonia as one of the most representative health innovation ecosystems in Europe". Minister Balcells stressed that innovation is a "strategic driver to advance in the transformation of the healthcare sector. Promoting and facilitating access to high-value healthcare innovation can significantly improve patients' health status and quality of life, benefiting both the Catalan healthcare system and the patients themselves".

PRECISEU aims to advance proactive, personalized, and patient-centered healthcare by connecting European innovation ecosystems. The project's goal is to share best practices and solutions across regions, particularly in advanced therapies and health data, to enhance medical care quality and expedite health research and innovation.