Medicen Paris Region is a competitiveness cluster whichs aims to position the Paris area as a leading region for diagnostic and therapeutic innovations or other leading-edge health technologies, thus enabling it to become a world-class center for translational medicine.
Medicen’s approach consists in leveraging value creation by stimulating innovation, which forms the very basis of French competitiveness clusters.
It sets three main priorities:
- Developing growth and employment in profitable markets by promoting transfer of innovative technologies and successful relationships between startups, SMEs, large firms, academic laboratories, clinical centers and educational establishments;
- Strengthening the competitiveness of the French health technology sector by promoting those involved and stimulating their innovation capacity;
- Increasing the attractiveness of the Paris Region and the vitality of its healthcare sector.
The Medicen cluster gathers companies, research centers, universities, hospitals and areas hosting biotechnology companies in Paris, Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis, Val-de-Marne, Essonne, Yvelines and Val d’Oise. It has more than 170 active members, including 120 companies in the field of medicine (Sanofi-Aventis, Servier, Ipsen, GSK, Pierre Fabre...) or biotechnology, imaging and health technologies (ABCell-Bio, AgiLab, Hybrigenics...), 23 organizations for research, higher education and technology transfer (INRIA, Généthon, Pasteur Institute, Curie Institute, Universities of Paris, CNRS, ENS Cachan, Bioparc Genopole...), and 13 local authorities and economic development agencies.
Medicen makes translational medicine its top priority. Translational medicine sits at the crossroads of clinical and non-clinical cognitive, explanatory and epidemiological research. It must be both integrating and federating, so as to integrate the complex effects that underpin pathological phenotypes (integrative biology), as well as to pool all knowledge, skills and talents for improving understanding, diagnosis and treatment of diseases.
With this aim in mind, the cluster should develop clinical research and imaging. It should leverage biological tools and bio-therapeutic products (development of biomarkers and representative models for targeted human pathologies, cell and tissue engineering, industrialisation of stem cell technology, genome engineering...), but also advances in biodigital systems, bioinformatics and e-health.
Medicen’s priority areas are major public health challenges: cancers, central nervous system diseases (neurodegenerative, sensory and psychiatric illnesses), infectious diseases, and cardiovascular diseases. Besides, cluster members are targeting the imaging, biological engineering and bio-instrumentation markets.