Patrick Boisseau, chairman of the EuropeanTechnology Platform on Nanomedicine (ETPN), said today that nanomedicine in Europe is rapidly progressing from a primarily academic-research-oriented andfragmented field to a multi-national program sharply focused on bringing thebenefits of nanomedicine to all Europeans.
Boisseau, who is head of Leti’s nanomedicine program, was re-elected ETPN’schairman during the group’s annual meeting in Dublin, Oct. 12-14. He said theorganization will create, implement and promote programs that help EU companiesbring innovative nanomedicines to market.
As part of its focus on getting these new medicines to market, ETPN also will createprograms to help companies receive clinical validation for their products, and getaccess to target markets, and that provide education and training to thosecompanies’ employees.
Renamed the ETPN Association to reflect its new mission and its new ambition, theorganization in the past three years has coordinated its goals with Horizon 2020,the biggest-ever European Commission (EC) research-and-innovation supportprogram. It also has focused its own efforts on establishing the NanomedicineTranslation Hub, which efficiently helps companies develop new nanomedicines andget them approved by regulators. This stronger focus on industrialization beganwith the association’s influential 2013 “White Paper on Nanomedicine”, whichidentified the primary bottlenecks in nanomed development and offeredrecommendations to eliminate them.
“The past three years were a turning point from a time when EC investment wasmostly on academic research towards a new era in which funding supports thetranslation of nanomedicine from lab proofs-of-concept to products in clinical trialsand getting innovative medicines to market,” Boisseau said. “On top of thatchange, we also created ETPN international cooperation projects, especially withthe U.S. These new programs are a major change in ETPN’s mission and activities.”
Most of the recommendations in the White Paper have been or are beingimplemented within Horizon 2020. These include:
- Establishing the European Nanomedicine Characterisation Laboratory (EUNCL),a EC-U.S. joint project and Europe’s dedicated nanomedicine lab,which is coordinated by Boisseau·
- Three pilot lines for scaling up manufacturing of clinical batches ofnanomedicines·
- The Translation Advisory Board, which helps entrepreneurs in nanomedicineon the clinical transfer and industrialization of their products·
- A funding program for innovative nanomed SMEs
As an emerging field combining medical technologies and biotechnologies,nanomedicine is continuously evolving and accelerating the introduction of newmedicines. Building on that potential, Boisseau has started a major new phase ofdevelopment to position nanomedicine as a key enabling technology (KET), an ECdesignation for technologies that have significant potential to fuel economic growthand provide jobs. The six designated KETs are nanoelectronics, nanotechnology,industrial biotechnology, advanced materials, photonics and advancedmanufacturing technologies.
With existing KETs, nanomedicine could help launch a new generation of smartsystems in medical technologies for diagnostics, therapy and patient monitoring.
“Overall, our efforts will focus on improving EU’s leadership in developing emergingand strategic technologies for health care,” Boisseau said. “This means dedicatedactions to support education and training, clinical validation, market access,reimbursement and new regulations, as well as industrial development.”