Presidium of Modernization Council approved NTI roadmap for HealthNet

The “roadmap” of the National Technological Initiative (NTI) for the development of the market of biotechnological and medical products and services that help improve the health and quality of human life - HealthNet was approved on December 20 at a meeting of the Presidium of the Council for Economic Modernization and Innovative Development of Russia under the chairmanship of Dmitry Medvedev.

“The use of new methods of treatment, new drugs, new technology generates a number of social, legal, economic and even ethical problems. For example: to what extent it is permissible to interfere in human biology, how to ensure the safety of personal data on health status, how to create conditions for active longevity,” Dmitry Medvedev outlined the tasks needed to be addressed within the roadmap.

The Head of the Government stressed that Russia should take a worthy place in all markets of medical services, “so that we ourselves could develop these technologies and internal competencies”.

According to Aleksey Repik, the co-leader of the HealthNet working group, the President of Business Russia, there will be changes in the next 20 years in health care, because of which investors call the HealthNet market a new IT.

“The genome sequencing process will be significantly cheaper and faster, more advanced methods of its editing will appear. The world is already moving in this direction. Just a month ago genome editing was performed in China using the CRISPR-Cas9 method for a patient with non-small cell lung cancer,” Aleksey Repik said.

He also noted that HealthNet is one of the fastest growing markets in the world. “Its volume in the world health care is already almost 1 trillion dollars, and by 2035 it will exceed 9 trillion dollars,” Aleksey Repik said.

The “roadmap” includes 6 main areas:

• Information technologies in medicine;
• Medical genetics;
• Sport and health
• Biomedicine;
• Healthy longevity
• Preventive medicine.

According to the document, 5 companies from Russia operating in these segments should join the ranks of the top 70 in terms of sales by 2035. 70% of products and services should have a full production cycle in Russia, and by the consumption volume of this market’s products Russia, should enter the world top 20.

The HealthNet market is formed on the existing technological base. “There are companies in Russia that deal with genome operations and 3D printing of organs, although the markets are still young. For example, genome editing has been performed for less than a hundred people in the world, and in the overwhelming majority of cases, these are same-type operations for HIV treatment,” said Mikhail Samsonov, the Deputy Head of the HealthNet working group, the Director of  R-Pharm Medical Department.

He also recalled that there is the experience of creating successful science-intensive enterprises in Russia, for example, the Interdisciplinary Scientific and Technical Complex S.N. Fedorov Eye Microsurgery and the Ilizarov Center.

Products created in the logic of NTI are already available to consumers. They include: compact cardio complex ECG Dongle, genetic tests Atlas and Genotek.

The HealthNet working group uses a program approach, forms a set of interrelated projects and activities to achieve the common goals of the “roadmap”.

Pilot programs and projects include:

• program for monitoring and correcting the state of human health using personal devices and artificial intelligence systems;
• program on the development of a platform for monitoring antibiotic resistance in the Russian Federation;
• project “School of Science” on the creation of an integrated system for identifying and training creatively gifted children who are able to study biotechnology and medicine;
• program on the development of genomic and proteomic technologies.

REFERENCE

The Council for Economic Modernization and Innovation Development under the President of the Russian Federation has so far approved six “roadmaps” of the National Technology Initiative (NTI) for the development of markets: AeroNet, AutoNet, MariNet, NeuroNet, EnergyNet, HealthNet. 11 projects that are implemented within these “roadmaps” will receive state support.