Heal Italia, a national research foundation based in PALERMO, took part in Washington, at the Italian Embassy in the United States, in the first event of the Italy-US Tech Business & Investment Matching Initiative, a program designed to foster cooperation between Italy and the United States in the innovation sector and to promote the Italian contribution at a global level. The Heal Italia Foundation deals with precision medicine with the aim of transferring the progress of scientific research and technological innovations to the healthcare world in order to translate the knowledge, acquired in experimental contexts, into clinical practice and thus contribute to the fight against chronic diseases with increasingly early diagnoses and increasingly targeted therapies. The Foundation is the result of investments of the Pnrr managed by the Ministry of University and Research and, after only two years and with the first 45 million invested on a financial endowment of over 114 million, it has recorded the first important results in terms of scientific production, technological development and experimentation of new and integrated organizational-managerial models intended for the healthcare world. The initiative promoted by the Italian Embassy is supported by several institutions, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, the Ministry of Business and Made in Italy (MIMIT), the Conference of Regions and Autonomous Provinces, 14 Italian regions, Confindustria, the Transatlantic Investment Committee (TIC) and the Transatlantic Harmonic Foundation (THF). On the other hand, the United States participates through the Department of State, the Department of Commerce, organizations from 18 American states, the Tech Hubs Organization, Select USA and the US Chamber of Commerce. This program was born from the indications of the Internationalization Control Room and is aimed at facilitating the meeting between Italian and US economic sector entities. Thanks to the support of public and private entities, the initiative aims to create industrial collaborations and attract investments in strategic sectors such as life sciences and aerospace, with a particular focus on solutions based on artificial intelligence. ”Thanks to the investments of the Ministry of University and Research in strategic partnerships for the country, we are proud to represent the Italian system of research and innovation in the field of precision medicine – says the president of the Heal Itallia Foundation, Andrea Pace – starting from Sicily, our ecosystem has brought together researchers and experts from all over Italy and has implemented a network of core facilities that will be at the service of industrial and translational research. Thanks to this event we have had the opportunity to meet entrepreneurs, investors, incubators and advanced laboratory systems that operate in the United States in the field of technology development and investments in the Life Sciences sector. Both in the preliminary meeting, held at the Washington DC Economic Partnership headquarters, and during the session on Life Sciences at the Italian Embassy, I had the opportunity to talk, among others, with the president of KC Bio Hub, Melissa Roberts Chapman, the vice president of the Business Development Missouri Partnership, Dennis Pruitt, and the Executive Director of the Economic Development Massachusetts Office of International Trade and Investment, Jeevan Ramapriya, who expressed interest in establishing a dialogue to evaluate future opportunities for collaboration”. The Heal Italia Foundation had the opportunity to present itself to US investors as a strategic partnership consisting of a qualified multidisciplinary network of over 80 entities including universities, IRCCS and companies, with the mission of developing and sharing research and technologies for advanced diagnostics, innovative therapies and digital tools for precision medicine.
