From 21 to 23 October 2023, in the framework of the IC2PerMed project, the second IC2PerMed delegation visit was organised by Chinese partners in Beijing (China). As the project is coming to an end, on 31 December 2023 this final event aimed to bring together the project partners and sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for future collaboration in PM.

On the first day of the Delegation Visit, partners were welcomed at the Wenjin Hotel for the international symposium on precision medicine. Professor HE Zuoxiang, Chairman of the conference, provided very inspiring introductory speech on the importance of EU-Chinas cooperation to address the many challenges in the precision medicine field. Wang Yingshi, from the bureau of China-Eu Cooperation in the Ministry of Science and Technology of PRC, highlighted the importance for researchers from the EU and China to continue discussing between each other in the cooperative framework of cooperation that has been created and developed since 1998.

It was followed by several presentations.

Monica Frenzel (ICPerMed, EP PerMed) presented the European vision on PM and the recent strategic framework of the European policy and its 2 keys tools, ICPerMed and EP PerMed. EP PerMed is a new platform, that includes 51 partners that should be launched soon, with a budget of 370 M€ over 10 years, most of it on the research on personal medicine, but also on the development of international cooperations, which represents a specific work package (WP5). “This project is happy looking forward a cooperation with China…In the next ten year, becoming more global. “

Stefania Boccia (UCSC) gave a brief overview of the IC2PerMed project and its results which aims at supporting cooperation between China and the EU in personal Medicine and is now reaching its end.

Frederick Dubee (BGI) underlined the importance of cooperation for Europe and China.

This morning session was concluded with the signature of the MoU to extend collaboration.

Then, the afternoon session, was first the opportunity for European partners to present potential opportunities for future collaboration (Marie Curie programme, possibility of data exchange, etc.) and then to further discuss the potential exploitation pathways of IC2PerMed key results.

On the second day, partners met in Beijing E-Town to the explore and discover the Biomedical industry.

During this second day, Dr Yaqian Zhao and Mr Meng Huo introduced the biomedical industry development in Beijing Economic and Technical Development Zone, which actually represents 800 companies and 30% of Beijing industrial added value, on only 1% of this land.

Dr. Stefania Boccia also introduced the European drug regulation context while Dr Lei Zaho presented the “Medical innovation Hub” of Beijing Economic and technical development zone and Tsinghua Medical Incubation Platform.

On the third and last day of the delegation visit, partners first gathered in the Clinical Trials Center (GCP) and were welcomed by the National Cancer Center (NCC). The delegation visited the NCC/CHCAMS Clinical Trial Center (GCP center) where trials are conducted for China and international leading companies (1519 trials in the last three years).

The three-day Delegation Visit in China ended with tour of one of BGI’s laboratories which is focusing on DNA sequencing.

While the IC2PerMed project will come to an end on 31st of December 2023, the Chinese partners’ project funded by MOST (Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology) will keep running for a year. The successful signature of the MoU between EU and Chinese partners marks the desire to continue and extend collaboration in the field of PM between Europe and China. Such collaboration will be manifold and will notably entail the integration of Chinese experts into the ICPerMed initiative. It will also aim at pursuing discussions on how to remove barriers to establish a common biobanking infrastructure and facilitating exchange of data to advance research and innovation in PM.