Brain & Mind: Advancing Neurosciences for a Healthier Future

We are thrilled to announce that the Brain & Mind project has emerged as one of the laureates of the Biocluster Call for Proposals under the ambitious “France 2030” plan. Supported by EIT Health from its inception, Brain & Mind is strategically positioned to foster synergies within this esteemed Biocluster. The project brings together over 50 scientific, medical, and industrial partners to establish an internationally renowned ecosystem for neuroscience research in the Paris region and across France. With a mission to revolutionize therapeutic approaches and prevention strategies, Brain & Mind aims to address the global burden of neurological and psychiatric disorders.

More than 1.5 billion people worldwide suffer from neurologic and psychiatric disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, depression, autism spectrum disorders, and sensory impairments like age-related macular degeneration. To address these pressing public health concerns, substantial investments have been made in the United States and China, focusing on brain tech. However, France lacked certain key elements necessary to establish itself as a leader in this global competition. Brain & Mind aims to bridge these gaps by enabling rapid product development trials, integrating medical and non-medical technologies, and creating a collaborative innovation continuum that brings together startups, major corporations, patient associations, research institutions, universities, and hospitals.

Thanks to public investment facilitated by France 2030, Brain & Mind will undertake groundbreaking innovation projects supported by multidisciplinary technological platforms. By uniting the scientific, medical, and technological communities in the fields of neurology, psychiatry, and sensory impairments, the project seeks to reimagine therapeutic and preventive approaches for adults and children alike. Spearheaded by the FondaMental Foundation, the Vision Institute, and the Brain Institute, the Brain & Mind biocluster unites leading neuroscience research entities in the Paris region. These include academic and healthcare institutions like Sorbonne University, Paris Cité University, Paris-Est Créteil University, Inserm, AP-HP, Neurospin, IHU IMAGINE, IHU Robert-Debré, as well as private and national/international industrial partners such as Leem, France Biotech, UCB, Malakoff Humanis, Servier, Biogen Novartis, Siemens Healthineers, Medicen, Roche, GenSight, Newfund, Bioserenity, EIT Health, Snitem, Health Data Hub, and l’Unafam.

The Brain & Mind biocluster has already garnered over 135 million euros in public and private contributions. With the support of the Île-de-France region and the City of Paris, the project aims to nurture the growth of numerous startups across the national territory. Its entrepreneurial approach, characterized by agile management and investment strategies, ensures attractiveness to investors at all stages of the project, fostering an inclusive innovation community.

EIT Health and the participants to the cluster are already working together on strategic initiatives :

• Both EIT Health and the cluster are adressing the same challenges and support to the innovators.
• There is a large part of the EIT Health portfolio dedicated to mental health. We have for instance 22 projects dedicated on neurology for 2022-2024.

These synergies with the Biocluster Neurosciences and Mental Health are a first step toward a closer collaboration. The membership of the biocluster will allow us to mobilise the EIT Health community of partners and its programmes for a better visibility and scalability of its activities. We will propose to develop a tailor-made support for the biocluster.

These services should include:

• support for startups to enter EIT Health programmes, especially for their internationalisation
• support for startups for their fundraising, through the Venture of Excellence programme
• access to education for all the partners of the cluster, thanks to the Health Academy.

Besides this support, we aim at developing strong partnerships with the cluster, through strategic initiatives of our organisation:

• The WorkInHealth Foundation we launched in 2021 has 4 main fields of activity : i) Attraction of talents by promoting of the health sector among talents from differents horizons ; ii) Pairing – use the most recent and performant technologies to connect talents and recruiters ; iii) For the future – use artificial intelligence and deep analysis to anticipate futur skills needs and iv) education to reduce the gap between academics and industries.
• The Digital Medical Devices (DMD) “task force” we are leading is composed of academic experts, political decision-makers and representatives of the competent national authorities (European HTA bodies).The group works on the harmonization of the taxonomy of digital medical devices as well as the criteria of proof and the evaluation methodologies in order to support patient access to “digital medical devices” on a European scale through reimbursement. 

We stand at the dawn of a scientific and medical revolution in the diagnosis, understanding, and therapeutic innovation of neuroscience. Brain & Mind possesses the potential to accelerate this revolution and propel France to the forefront of these crucial endeavors. The project’s strength lies in the collaboration of world-class scientific, medical, and industrial teams who have joined forces to realize a unique vision. Together, we aim to redefine the landscape of biomedical research and bring about significant improvements in the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mental and neurological disorders.