Accelerating innovation in medical devices and e-health for patients and healthcare providers

Interview with Mrs Azèle MATHIEU, Coordinator of the lifetech.brussels cluster

Could you tell us a few words about lifetech.brussels? Lifetech.brussels is the Brussels health innovation cluster. Created in 2014 and integrated within hub.brussels, the Brussels Agency for Business Support, the cluster today has 157 members, including 61 e-health projects and 30 medical devices projects. Its services are completely free of charge. It is based on the quadruple helix principle: to stimulate innovation, it is vital to initiate and reinforce synergies between different types of stakeholders: public organisations, scientists, industry (innovative and intermediate/expert start-ups) and civil society (patients, care providers).

Lifetech.brussels strives to accelerate the availability of innovative solutions to help patients and care providers. The economic tool helps in the achievement of public health targets. Its final goals are innovation to contribute to improved continuity and coordination of care in Brussels, to support the ageing population and in general its most vulnerable population groups, and lastly to stimulate prevention and personalised medicine.

What are the missions of the cluster? The cluster’s mission is threefold: to support innovators and entrepreneurs to accelerate the deployment of their project, the networking of the stakeholders making up the cluster through the organisation of events, and the launching of structural projects that bring together its various members. The underlying technologies targeted as a priority are medical devices and e-health.

In parallel with its “push” support to innovators who bring a solution to users, Lifetech has, since 2018, supported “pull” initiatives based on the needs of patients and care providers to develop innovative solutions that directly address their needs.

Could you give us a few examples of the cluster's achievements and projects? In 2016 the cluster launched the MedTech Accelerator ® , a programme designed by experts in the sector for entrepreneurs who are developing a medical device, in order to accelerate the commercial deployment of their solution. This programme was made possible thanks to ERDF European funding (see article opposite).

In December 2019, the cluster launched MedTech Atelier ® , a service providing assistance to the prototyping of medical devices, always with a view to optimising technological transfer, either from the lab to the market, or from patient/doctor needs to the development of the solution required to meet those needs. This service is the fruit of a collaboration between the cluster, an incubator on a university hospital site (the BLSI) and medical device experts (Covartim).

Lifetech.brussels has also contributed towards the implementation of e-santé.brussels: a platform that brings together hospital federations (Gibbis, Santhea), the Belgian e-health industry (Agoria), the research and innovation support body (Innoviris), the PAQS (responsible for safety in hospitals), regional government representatives, Abrumet (responsible for the Brussels health network) and the cluster. To optimise the user experience for doctors and patients with respect to e-health, the cluster has put incentives in place to ensure that e-health start-ups are interoperable with the Belgian Electronic Health Record (EHR).

What are the big projects in store for 2020? Thanks to the dynamism of e-santé.brussels, Brussels has been selected by IHE-Europe to host the international health data interoperability event, Connectathon, which will be held from 23 to 27 March 2020.

Lifetech.brussels provides first line care support in Brussels, represented by Brusano, to identify the needs of patients and Brussels care providers in terms of innovative tools that are able to facilitate communication and coordination between these various stakeholders to ensure better healthcare continuity. The project is currently under way and the results are expected to be announced in 2020.

Via a first public/private partnership that is the only one of its kind, lifetech.brussels contributes to the implementation of E-Health Valley, a national e-health expertise centre. The opening of E-Health Valley is scheduled for June 2020.