France wants to strengthen its international attractiveness in the field of biomedical research. This is why 16 new centers, co-financed by public and private funds, were unveiled by Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday. They are part of the Health Innovation 2030 plan. The Head of State announced the labeling of twelve new university hospital institutes (IHU) – in addition to the seven already existing – and four new “bioclusters”, large research combining public and private sectors, which will be added to a first cancerology biocluster created in recent years at Saclay.
These newly labeled centers of excellence, which will receive financial support from the State, are scattered across France, from Villejuif (south of Paris) to Bordeaux, via Garches (west of Paris), Lyon or Marseilles. Institut Curie is notably on the list of winning IHUs. They are specifically dedicated to subjects such as gerontology (Toulouse), female cancers (Institut Curie in Paris), or cerebrovascular diseases (Bordeaux), etc. They will be places of training, research and experimentation as well as partnerships with industrialists.
Various financing
In detail, the State plans to devote “more than 400 million euros” to bioclusters, already financed by manufacturers, and some 300 million for IHUs. Must be added 100 million to reinforce in particular the infrastructures of biology via various projects financed in France. Moreover, State investments must be supplemented by funding from local authorities and private actors.
The stated objective being to bring together the various health skills – care, research and innovation – within centers of excellence and thus to allow the development of integrated health research projects to “improve the health of patients, the organization care and the health system”.
At the same time, a call for projects will be launched in a few days to offer teams comprising among the “best scientists in the world” funding over a period of five years to carry out research programs in France, via the creation of “fifty of chairs of excellence” in biology and health, added Emmanuel Macron, specifying that he wanted to make “up to two million euros” available to each of these chairs.