Five Eindhoven organizations are going one step further to speed up the development and application of medical innovations. The collaboration between TU Eindhoven, Philips, Máxima Medical Center, Catharina Hospital and the Kempenhaeghe Expertise Center in e/MTIC (Eindhoven MedTech Innovation Center) will lead to more technical innovation in healthcare.
Within the consortium, some one hundred TU/e PhD students are working with a similar number of experts, academics and scientists from TU/e, hospitals and Philips. Over the past 15 years, the parties have already been working together bilaterally on projects for perinatal care (birth care), cardiovascular care (heart and blood vessels) and sleep disorders. The TU/e Impuls program (for the training of more PhD students) has also strengthened technical innovation in healthcare over the past five years.
A number of activities will be given a place in the future Eindhoven Engine, a new research facility on the TU/e campus where the university, industry, companies and non-profit organizations will work together in joint research programs. Work on the Engine will start in January 2019.
Much more about the Eindhoven Engine here
The partners expect that the intensive collaboration between clinic, science and industry will shorten the development time from research to results for the patient. It is not unusual for this to take 15 years or more. e/MTIC aims to shorten this period to five to eight years, for example by sharing research results and setting up a region-wide METC (Medical Ethics Review Committee) specifically for medical technology. This will lead to scientific and technological breakthroughs, making it quicker to identify and treat common diseases.
Manager Kees van der Klauw of the e/MTIC ecosystem: “The aging population and the rapidly growing costs of healthcare make the current system unsustainable for the future. Technological developments are a necessary part of the solution. Together we are working on innovations that benefit the patient.”
Photo: Signing of the e/MTIC Consortium. From left to right: Marlene Chatrou (Kempenhaeghe), (presenter Cindy De Koning), Franklin Schuling (Philips), Jan Harm Zwaveling (MMC), Piet Batenburg (Catharina), Frank Baaijens (TU/e). Photo Bart van Overbeeke
