The BRIGHT project within the European COSME program, launched in February 2022, aims to enhance the excellence of four leading Life Sciences and Healthcare industrial clusters in Europe by doing a Strategic Cluster Partnership. To this end, we have set up an exchange program enabling all European players to come and discover our partners' healthcare clusters and ecosystems.

Eurasanté’ s objective was to present to the participants of the Cluster Exchange the French Healthcare ecosystem, to give them access to the most recent information about it, to meet the different players working there and to make the BRIGHT project visible to a larger audience.

The partners of the Cluster Exchange (CXC) got to know some companies working in the field of digital health in the Grand Est region and had the opportunity to visit laboratories, where project around IA are in development and to meet the researchers as well as various members of NextMed and Strasbourg’s IHU. Finally, the BRIGHT delegation also took part to our Medfit Event which we will explain in greater detail below.

The first day of the CXC was dedicated to visits and meetings with the Strasbourg healthcare ecosystem. Participants were welcomed by Nextmed , who organized a viste of their business park. Nextmed brings together all the doctors, researchers, entrepreneurs and patients on a 30-hectare site to build the healthcare of the future and imagine innovative solutions for patient care, notably through digital technology and AI.

They explained the history behind the park and how the incubator was created and the link between Nextmed and other organization within this innovative ecosystem like the IHU and IRCAD ( is a medical and surgical research institute founded in 1994 that uses artificial intelligence to "augment" the skills of surgeons, particularly in the fields of vision and robotics for the hand).

Within their incubator, we were able to meet different kind of organizations :

• Startups like ToktokDoc who enables teleconsultations or tele-expertise with general practitioners and specialists. Patients who can't or don't want to see their doctor alone in front of a screen can benefit from the support of expert telemedicine nurses.
• Development Agencies dedicated to healthcare sector like BioValley France who brings its unique expertise to the healthcare sector, focusing on four major domains: innovative medicines and therapies, medical technologies, diagnostics and e-health.
• Incubators like Quest for Health who offers a personalized support for medtech, biotech and e-health entrepreneurs with a project at early stages of development. Their team of former entrepreneurs and sectorial experts provides all the necessary resources to maximize the success of entrepreneurs working for the benefit of patients and/or healthcare professionals.

The delegation had also the chance to visit and meet several experts of the IHU (University Hospital Institute). The Institute is a unique medical and surgical center dedicated to the management of digestive diseases.

At the IHU, participants were able to attend the presentation of various innovative projects:

• eCAP : is a Horizon Europe research and innovation project developing a multi-function smart capsule connected to an e-health platform for better diagnostics, patient empowered disease management, and ultimately — improved outcomes for patients worldwide with gastrointestinal (GI) digestive diseases.
• DIAMS project focuses on building a set of processes to include AI in the care pathway.
• ABITO and APEUS are two projects designed to include the use of AI in image-assisted operations via endoscopy.

After the first day of the CXC, the delegation of visitors participated to the Medfit Business Convention hosted in Strasbourg from October 10th to October 11th.

As the leading European partnering event, MedFIT provides the ideal environment to help industry players to source early-stage assets, to facilitate the emergence of collaborative projects between big players, public research institutions, start-ups and SMEs, to increase licensing opportunities, to obtain funding and to facilitate market access.

With 650 international participants from 30+ countries, MedFIT is a real opportunity to connect with international key innovators in the MedTech, Diagnostic and Digital Health sectors.

Over the two days of the event, participants were able to take part in MedFit and attend a serie of the dedicated conferences on these topics. They also had the opportunity, through the B2B meeting platform, to schedule business meetings with the stakeholders present during the convention.

These 3 days were rich in learning, encounters and will undoubtedly prove very useful in our respective future developments.