UNIVERSITY OF BRESCIA, ANTARES VISION GROUP AND DOMPE’ FARMACEUTICI: 2,000 SQ.M. IN THE UNIVERSITY CAMPUS TO DEVELOP THE FUTURE’S HOSPITALS AND HEALTHCARE

A research and innovation infrastructure for the development of Digital Healthcare, Biopharma, Artificial Intelligence, and Big Data will be created with the contribution of Next Generation EU.

Brescia, 29 June 2022  – The University of Brescia has signed an agreement with Antares Vision Group, an Italian product and chain quality traceability and control multinational, and with Dompè farmaceutici S.p.A., a leading Italian company in the bio-pharmaceutical sector, for the development of an integrated system of infrastructures that will expand by approximately 2,000 sq.m. the Technological Multisector Service Centre in the building owned by the University inside the North university campus.

The project, the result of a public and private partnership which has collected EUR 19.5 million in funds, known as L.I.G.H.T. – Lifescience Innovation Good Healthcare Technology – will develop healthcare technologies pursuing three important goals:

• AI and Big Data Main Hub: large-scale analysis, storage, and construction of platforms for sharing the data collected, creation and update of websites.
• Digital Health Care Hub: development of a smart hospital with geo-referenced rooms and beds equipped with sensors and communication systems for continuous monitoring, development of telemedicine digital technologies, and for improved remote control of the patient, creation of drug tracking solutions that aim to protect the quality and integrity of the medicinal products themselves and reduce administration errors or counterfeiting.
• AI Biopharma Hub: development of a fully integrated structure based on artificial intelligence that can design, synthesise, and define the activity of new drugs and bio-pharmaceuticals, in collaboration with the EXSCALATE platform of Dompé farmaceutici S.p.a.

The L.I.G.H.T. infrastructural project is consistent with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda signed by the members of the UN and focuses on the Green New Deal:

• it is in line with goal no.3 “Good health and well-being” as it aims to develop new technological solutions for healthy and ill patients, and to design a smart hospital prototype.
• it complies with the principles of goal no.5 “Gender equality” as all governing bodies of the infrastructure will be designed in conformity with the gender equality principles.
• it aims to reach goal no.9 “Industry, innovation and infrastructure” as its purpose is to design an infrastructure where public and private entities exchange ideas and experiences for a new open innovation system, with three targets:

1. a) increasing the contact and meeting points between basic research and industrial research to create new solutions for health and well-being; b) set up new innovative undertakings; c) revise the curricula for the training of new professional figures in the medical field and in the field of new technologies for health.

“The main goal of the initiative is to strengthen the collaboration between the University of Brescia and private companies aiming at a more in-depth integration of basic research skills with skills in industrial and experimental research”, states the Chancellor, Prof. Maurizio Tira. “Moreover, the project will have a significant impact on knowledge that can be applied to the digital transition of healthcare providers”.

“Technological Innovation Infrastructures – adds Prof. Marina Pizzi, Vice Chancellor for research – represent vital initiatives for Italian research that must prove that they are able to integrate to an increasing degree in the years to come, following the PNRR [Italy’s recovery and resilience plan], with significant effects for the entire national research system and its technological transfer into products that citizens can use”.

”We are proud to partner with the University of Brescia in this project that, thanks to its concreteness, we believe can trigger a virtuous circle of contacts and partnerships among various entities in our country. In the words of Emidio Zorzella, Chairman and Co-CEO of Antares Vision Group, “We have always believed in research, in innovation, and in a multidisciplinary approach as a driver for growth, transformation, and sustainability”.

”The collaboration between public and private entities and open innovation have, for some time, been one of the driving forces of the research carried out by Dompé farmaceutici – commented Marcello Allegretti, Chief Scientifc Officer of the Milan-based company – I believe that our EXSCALATE platform, which is based on artificial intelligence and supercomputing, can make a significant contribution towards the success of the initiative, producing new knowledge, accelerating drug discovery times, and consolidating the scientific network with new partners”.