VPHi director meets Chair European Parliament SANT committee at LifeScience4EU conference

The conference started with 2 keynotes lectures setting the scene, from the perspective of the policy makers and the industry. This painted a picture of a very active community but one with several challenges left to gain back competitiveness of Europe compared to the rest of the world. These opening keynotes were followed by a panel discussing the future state of health in Europe by aligning stakeholders for collaborative success. Panel members represented policy makers, investors, industry and researchers. Amongst them, MEP Adam Jarubas, chair of the SANT Committee. The panel discussed the need for speed, for integration, for collaboration and for resilience. But it also mentioned positive developments and initiatives already ongoing in the EU. MEP Jarubas gave the example of digital twins as a way to make a difference in the healthcare sector and address several of the aforementioned challenges. He referred to the Virtual Human Twin (VHT) initiative and explicitly acknowledged several of its partners, the VPH institute and the SANO research center, present at the conference. The conference will continue with fireside chats, panels and networking opportunities discussing collaboration, technology challenges and policy needs.

We are thrilled the work of the EDITH consortium and the entire VHT ecosystem is receiving this public recognition. We will continue working to ensure the needs of the ecosystem, the vision for the VHT and the implications for research, policy, regulatory and stakeholder involvement are widely disseminated. We look forward to collaborate with policy makers to bring this ecosystem perspective to the European Parliament to assist in creating policies that facilitate and stimulate the roll-out of the VHT vision so it can realize its potential in keeping our entire European healthcare system sustainable and top-notch, while contribute to enhancing Europe’s competitiveness.