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Given the wealth of potential in the Paris Ile-de-France region, it was decided to organize the Cluster around themes which have achieved a critical mass in terms of public-sector research and industrial activity and which meet the following five requirements:
- the presence of strong corporate R&D.
- academic research with an indisputably international reputation.
- essential public/private subsidiarity.
- a major public health issue.
- regional and/or national political commitment, as attested by cohesion-promoting projects.
This approach is notably based on a review of the Paris Ile-de-France region's public- and private-sector potential in the healthcare field (drawn up by the Paris Ile-de-France Regional Economic Development Agency (ARD) with analytical input from the Arthur D. Little consultancy firm in 2004). The review particularly focused on the thematic R&D priorities of Ile-de-France-based "big pharma" companies as well as the territorial distribution of the region's biotech companies and grants awarded in 2004 to the latter by Oseo Anvar (the France government's innovation agency).
There are three therapy-focused themes:
Three technology-focused themes:
A seventh therapy-focused theme - "Diabetes and metabolic & cardiovascular diseases" - is likely to be integrated into the Cluster in the mid term.
Each chosen theme constitutes its own source of collaborative R&D projects. However, the overall coherence of the grid formed by the therapy-focused and technology-focused themes is reinforced by emergence of projects at the intersection between pairs of thematic axes. All the major players in these themes are members of the cluster.
Hence, the Cluster has the ability to generate synergies, partnerships and interactions between the various themes. New techniques in both molecular & cellular biology and biomedical imaging fertilize the entire drug development sector and give rise to new diagnostic and therapeutic approaches, particularly in the three selected therapeutic domain.
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