Comparison with the protagonists of the biomedical and pharmaceutical sectors

di Francesco Unali

Companies and universities to build the future, accelerating innovation processes through ever closer synergies. This is the main message that emerged from the conference "Medtech, present future, universities and businesses design the tomorrow" organized byUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma with the patronage of Unindustria and the participation of the main companies in the biomedical and pharmaceutical sector. An appointment, that of July 13, which outlined the profile of the doctor of the future in conjunction with the launch of the two degree courses "Medtech" and "Biomedical Engineering", both in English, capable of building modern doctors and engineers and the figure of the "double graduate" in medicine and engineering.
The Medtech sector represents the future of healthcare: stimulated by the pandemic, it also grew in 2020 and has development prospects across the planet. In Italy it generates a market worth 16,2 billion euros divided between 4.546 companies employing 112.534 people. The turnover growth rate (2021 on 2020) reached +6,4 percent against a global growth of 5,6 percent. Investments are growing year on year, with +9,6 percent in 2021 and further growth prospects in the coming years. In Europe, Italy is the sixth exporter in this sector and 13th worldwide.
The National Health System is changing, the country's demographics are changing and technologies are offering increasingly intelligent solutions: even the doctors of the future will be involved and called upon to have increasingly transversal skills and knowledge that will enable them to work with new technologies, robots and cutting-edge machinery. In a healthcare ecosystem that puts the patient at the center through biomedical research, digital transformation, telemedicine, the territory and new technologies applied to diagnostics and prevention, hospitals and biomedical and pharmaceutical companies are looking for new figures with knowledge that straddles traditional medicine and biomedical engineering to develop new treatments, create devices and machinery.
For this theUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma in looking to the future, questioning the university's ability to work together with businesses to facilitate research, development and technology transfer for the benefit of people's health, he drew up the "decalogue" of the characteristics that the doctor of the future will have: hybridization of knowledge, for the health and well-being of the patient; open mind, to contribute to the technological solutions of tomorrow; transversality, to overcome traditional professional boundaries; flexibility, ability to operate in hospitals as well as in medtech companies; 100 percent doctor, able to follow the patient on a clinical and human level; 100 percent engineering training, to better manage diagnoses and therapies with machinery; ability to manage the patient's ethical issues arising from the presence of modern technologies.
With the president Carlo Tosti, the Rector Raffaele Calabrò and the CEO Andrea Rossi Silvio Brusaferro, president of ISS, discussed; Maria Chiara Carrozza, President of the National Research Council (CNR); Massimiliano Boggetti; Massimo Scaccabarozzi, Past President of Farmindustria; Maurizio Tarquini; Luigi Ambrosini, DG Abbott; Michele Perrino, president and CEO Medtronic Italia; Filippo Piazza, investment associate Angelini Hive; Stefano Collatina, Baxter and Patrizia Palazzi, Siemens Healthcare.