OREANDA-NEWS. July 22, 2015.

Excerpts from Dmitry Medvedev’s opening remarks:

Meeting on the innovative development of medicine on the basis of public-private partnership

Just a few years ago, public-private partnership in medicine was perceived as something exotic. Investors were not particularly enthusiastic about medicine. But now things have changed, all the more so since the state, business and science have a common goal: to create conditions for utilising the achievements of modern medicine for practical healthcare.

Novosibirsk is one of the largest centres of science and technology in Russia and the rest of the world. It accommodates the Academic Town, numerous organisations of the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences and many other scientific institutions, including Russia’s first medical technology park. The park’s innovative companies are doing well; its residents have achieved real integration of science and business and have ensured the functioning of a full cycle: from the origin of a scientific idea to its introduction and commercialisation.

The state supports innovations in medicine. The development of high-tech medical assistance has become the most successful area. In the past five years alone it has more than doubled in scale. The establishment of federal centres of high-tech medical aid all over the country is producing real results. Many clinics also render high-tech medical assistance. In all, there are 675 medical institutions: federal, regional and private. The Ministry of Healthcare has set up 14 science platforms: in cardiology, oncology and regenerative medicine, to name a few. It is forming a network of scientific and educational medical clusters – key elements of innovative medicine – and is establishing national research and practice centres. It has launched over a hundred breakthrough projects that are consistent with global priorities in biomedicine, including nuclear medicine, cell and tissue engineering, and genome technology, to name a few.

The Ministry is carrying out the strategy for the development of medical science up to 2025 and a number of relevant federal targeted programmes, and is paying a great deal of attention to innovative mechanisms.

 Sixty public-private projects on innovative medicine are being implemented. About half of them are based on concession agreements, including two in the Novosibirsk Region. Serious work will be carried out on their basis. One of the agreements will concern the Novosibirsk Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedics. The first concession on medical facilities will be signed at federal level.

Apart from concession agreements it is necessary to develop other forms of public-private partnership, including investment projects. The development of technology should be accompanied by its effective introduction. To achieve this it is necessary to close gaps in the innovation chain and promote closer ties between medical institutions, research centres and manufacturers. It is essential to include priority areas in the government’s research assignments. This will make it possible to introduce innovations faster and at lower costs.

Last year the development of public-private partnership became one of the indicators of the efficient performance of the heads of federal and regional executive bodies.