The European Commission has extended support for the Venture Centre of Excellence programme with the announcement of a €150m financial contribution.
EIT Health and the European Investment Fund’s (EIF) Venture Centre of Excellence is expected to catalyse over €2bn into the European Life Sciences industry, aiming to empower financing for European health start-ups to help accelerate health innovation for citizens.
The European Commission announced the contribution of €150m from the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) to the Venture Centre of Excellence programme during the annual HealthTech Innovation Days event, which featured speeches from French President, Emmanuel Macron, as well as Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for the Internal Market.
Venture Centre of Excellence
The Venture Centre of Excellence is a first-of-its-kind open innovation platform in the Life Science sector in Europe aimed at fostering collaboration and investment sharing between the venture capital industry and corporates in order to boost investments in highly innovative digital health and life science start-ups.
This enhanced collaboration and investment capacity is expected to boost Europe’s innovative life science ecosystem, support breakthrough technologies, ensure products and services are commercialised and scaled in Europe, and help attract talent and innovation from beyond Europe’s borders.
Thierry Breton, said: “The crisis has accelerated the digital transformation of healthcare in Europe. We must seize this opportunity. We need to act strategically and create the conditions for start-ups, industry, healthcare systems and patients to benefit fully from the potential of digital health in Europe. As part of our efforts, today we are offering concrete support towards the Venture Centre of Excellence, an innovative platform fostering collaboration and investment that are much needed for Europe’s health ecosystem.”
Jan-Philipp Beck, CEO of EIT Health, commented: “At the EIT Health Summit in December 2019, the President of Paris Region Valérie Pécresse, announced that the region would host and finance the installation of the operational headquarters of the Venture Centre of Excellence in Paris, alongside EIF’s teams in Luxembourg.
“With the strong financial backing from the European Commission, the Venture Centre of Excellence will break down silos between key ecosystem players, and concretely support Life Science and healthcare innovation. Thanks to EIT Health’s positioning as one of the world’s largest healthcare consortia, we will therefore be able to facilitate the access to market of high-quality solutions meeting real-world patient and citizen needs.”
