Securing Adoption of Personalised Health in REgions

Project Information

SAPHIRE

Grant agreement ID: 825046

DOI

10.3030/825046

Project closed

EC signature date 14 November 2018

Start date 1 December 2018

End date 31 May 2022

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Health, demographic change and well-being

Total cost

€ 1 853 813,13

EU contribution

€ 1 778 813,00

Coordinated by

VLAAMSE GEWEST
Belgium

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - SAPHIRE (Securing Adoption of Personalised Health in REgions)

Reporting period: 2020-06-01 to 2022-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

SAPHIRe, the consortium for Securing the Adoption of Personalised Health in Regions, aims to help structuring the implementation of personalised medicine emphasising on the regional level.
Personalised medicine (PM) is a medical model based on the characterization of individuals’ phenotypes and genotypes (e.g. molecular profiling, medical imaging, lifestyle data) to tailor the right therapeutic strategy for the right person at the right time. It is a major evolution towards understanding the predisposition to diseases and/or to deliver timely and targeted prevention or personalised health. PM leads towards a better knowledge of biological mechanisms and environmental factors that govern health and disease. It includes earlier screening and treatment, and more efficient monitoring and adjustment of treatments to improve care to patients by delivering faster and more efficient interventions. In this way, personalised medicine is driving a transition of healthcare approaches and services that will contribute to the sustainability of healthcare systems.
The overall objective of the coordination action was to structure the implementation of PM at regional level, and to support in this way the implementation and reach of the International Consortium on Personalised Medicine (ICPerMed) and the roll-out of PM in Europe. SAPHIRe is establishing and supporting networking between regions. The action facilitated interregional cooperation, and reached out in particular to remote or sparsely populated regions to link with regions harbouring critical mass of medical and PM expertise, while taking into account broader socio-economic and cultural aspects.
The action supported the ICPerMed agenda to facilitate a fruitful dialogue between policy and decision makers, opinion leaders, such as representatives from health ministries and research funders from regional and national level.
SAPHIRe was targeting regions, as regions are often powerhouses for innovation, which through the adoption of personalised health, can drive the transition towards sustainable healthcare and personalised health. SAPHIRe is focusing not only on central and densely populated regions with strong innovation capacities and advanced adoption levels of PM, but works towards including also remote and sparsely populated regions with specific needs to fully embrace PM.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

To get an overview of the implementation level of personalised medicine in regions with different innovation capacities and different adaption levels, a series of site visits to central regional stakeholders was done. This information round was supported by online surveys, which were distributed to the regional representation offices in Brussels, to central regional stakeholders and through the JRC website of the Smart Specialisation Partnership for Personalised Medicine (S3P4PM).
Next to this, SAPHIRe organised dedicated workshops and - since the COVID pandemics- a series of webinars, to address specific issues, barriers and needs to advance.
The mapping exercise and outcomes of the workshops and webinars served to build the SAPHIRe Observatory as a dynamic online tool for regional policymakers, funders and other key stakeholders to share relevant information on policies, best practices, implementation of personalised medicine, projects and innovation activities related to personalised medicine. This allows users to search for a region and provides an overview of regional activities in personalised medicine and to find partners for potential collaboration and exchange of information.
The findings of the workshops and webinars were summarised in a number of reports, which are available on the SAPHIRe website. The insights were feeding into a modular roadmap for regions to provide guidance and inspiration for European regions and their policy makers that want to invest in research and innovation (R&I) for personalised medicine and capitalise on the implementation in their region. The roadmap is the outcome and extraction of the work done during the SAPHIRe workshops, webinars and round table events. It is also based on input from the regions through the surveys and desktop research. The work of SAPHIRe clearly demonstrated how diverse regions are. The authority levels for R&I and health are differently distributed and no country in Europe is organised in the same manner. Therefore, the roadmap is presented as a modular package to serve the different needs of different regions, adapted to their specific needs, ambitions and capacities. The roadmap contains a flowchart, different best practices and recommendations for regions and regional stakeholders involved in personalised medicine.
SAPHIRe also tries to activate collaborations between regions. This was done through dedicated actions that bring regional stakeholders together to identify common interests and complementary assets. Next to the round table events of EIT Health Innostars, the Smart Specialisation Partnership on Personalised Medicine (S3P4PM) and the follow-up initiative - the Vanguard Initiative Pilot Smart Health - is one of the initiatives that is supporting the activation of regions. Through these actions SAPHIRe wanted to establish novel innovative collaborations between regional stakeholders.
All information about the progress made by the SAPHIRe consortium can be found in the SAPHIRe newsletter, our website, linkedIn and our Twitter account. Updates were also given to ICPerMed to be included in the ICPerMed newsletter.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

SAPHIRe paved the way to get a better understanding of the potential of regions to implement and fully embrace to opportunities of personalised medicine. An important network of regional actors across Europe was built. These regions include central and densely populated regions, with strong innovating capacities and high implementation levels of personalised medicine with regions that are less strong innovators, did not fully take up personalised medicine in their approaches or regions that have specific needs linked to the fact that they are remote or sparsely populated.

The Observatory reflects the network built and will prove a valuable asset to identify future partners for collaboration in the field of personalised medicine.
In the next part of the project, the Observatory will be further expanded according to the planning. The information in the Observatory will also be the basis to establish a modular roadmap to support the uptake of personalised medicine in regions. To establish such a roadmap, additional workshops among regional stakeholders will be organised. The Observatory will remain accessible on the SAPHIRE website. Steps are being taken to introduce the Observatory in the Vanguard Initiative Pilot Smart Health and to use it as a basis for continued updating and expanding by further collecting relevant information from the participating regions in the context of personalised health.

We will also focus on the activation and acceleration through novel collaboration among regional stakeholders. EIT Health Innostars as well as the S3P4PM/ Vanguard Initiative-network will be important to further these interactions.

The work feedback from SAPHIRe also served as input for the preparation of the European Partnership on Personalised Medicine, to include regions into the partnership to maximally value the regional assets and ensure faster absorption of novel innovations through closer involvement of regional stakeholders.

SAPHIRe logo

SAPHIRe logo

the SAPHIRe team