Ecosystem - Medical Valley (2024)

The Medical Valley European Metropolitan Region Nuremberg (EMN) Association is an internationally leading innovation ecosystem in the area of healthcare management. Highly specialized research institutions, internationally leading and at the same time many growing companies are active here. They cooperate closely with world-renowned health research institutions in order to jointly find solutions for the challenges of healthcare today and tomorrow. This extraordinary concentration of players, combined with the international market and competitive position of individual players, the unique infrastructures and services, all provide the conditions that allow ideas to be turned into products, processes and services more quickly. The nationally and internationally outstanding position of this economically strong region was additionally strengthened in January 2010 by the appointment of “Leading-Edge Cluster” for medical technology by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).

We, as Medical Valley European Metropolitan Region Nuremberg (EMN) Association, have currently more than 250 members from business, science, healthcare, networks and politics. We have been contributing to the further development, coordination and marketing of this ecosystem since 2007. Current activities of Medical Valley EMN are a. o. operation of the innovation centers Medical Valley Center Erlangen and Forchheim, coordination of the Bavarian Medical Technology Cluster (in cooperation with former Forum MedTech Pharma and now Gesundheit bei Bayern Innovativ), set-up and performance of the Medical Valley Award (Award for research teams at the pre-seed stage) and the coordination of the topic platform “Digital Health/Medicine“ in line with the Center for Digitization.Bavaria.

The Medical Valley GmbH is the commercial platform of the cluster and offers professional support for all business matters regarding healthcare market access consulting, trading consulting as well as acquisition of capital.

Milestones of Medical Valley EMN Association

In April 2017, Medical Valley, in cooperation with the Zollhof Tech Incubator and the Health Hackers, was named one of twelve national “Digital Hubs” by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) – the only one that focuses exclusively on health.

Furthermore, Medical Valley EMN is an EIT Health consortium member. EIT Health is a consolidation of European partners, that develop – within the scope of Horizon 2020 – new solutions regarding the topics „Promote Healthy Living“, „Support Active Ageing“ and „Improve Healthcare“. With a budget of up to 80 m p.a. for the next 7 to 15 years EIT Health is currently one of the biggest health research programs worldwide.

In 2021, with the founding of the Institute for Healthcare Robotics and Automation, short IFOHRA, another component of the Medical Valley Center Bamberg followed. IFOHRA accompanies hospitals and other healthcare providers in the technological transformation process, especially in the implementation of automation and robotics solutions. IFOHRA also supports manufacturers of innovative automation solutions in gaining access to the German healthcare market.

Since January 2022, Medical Valley has been part of the “Trusted Ecosystem of Applied Medical Data eXchange (TEAM-X)” project. Within this framework, solutions are being researched and implemented with which future healthcare can overcome sectoral and domain-related boundaries. The aim is to establish a protected and trustworthy digital data ecosystem based on the Gaia-X infrastructure for the development of data-driven business models, products and services as the basis for forward-looking healthcare.

Since June 2023, Medical Valley has been involved in the EDIH DigiCare project in cooperation with Bayern Innovativ to support and shape the digital transformation in the healthcare sector. Medical Valley is positioning itself as a European digital innovation centre and acts as a central point of contact for start-ups, SMEs and public organizations to support them in overcoming digital challenges and sustainably increasing their competitiveness. Targeted services provide assistance and resources to optimally exploit the potential of digitalization in the healthcare sector.

In September 2023, Medical Valley, together with the consortium partners Bayern Innovativ Gesundheit and Monks – Ärzte im Netz, was awarded the contract by gematik GmbH to set up a telematicsinfrastructure model region in Franconia. The aim is to use TI applications and services that have already been rolled out and those planned for the future in day-to-day healthcare in order to subsequently use the experience and knowledge gained there to improve the applications and services on the one hand, and to demonstrate how the applications and services can make an important contribution in a wide variety of healthcare scenarios on the other.