Region Ile-de-France to host VCoE

Region will provide up to €200 000 in support and a home to the Centre, an initiative of EIT Health and EIF

The Ile-de-France region has been selected as host of EIT Health and the European Investment Fund (EIF) international Venture Centre of Excellence, and the region will provide financial support of up to €200 000.

Valérie Pécresse, President of the Ile-De-France region, announced that the financial support and selection of the region to host the operations of the Venture Centre of Excellence earlier this week at an EIT Health event in Paris.

About the Venture Centre of Excellence

The Venture Centre of Excellence is Europe’s first life sciences and healthcare open innovation programme, dedicated to attracting more investment to Europe’s healthcare and life sciences sector. It will increase Europe’s innovation capacity by providing access to investment for start-ups, while also building strategic connections between venture capital funds and corporate members, to promote collaboration with disruptive start-ups.

This 15-year pan-European programme is expected to inject €2 billion euros into the economy and has been conceived and developed as part of a collaboration between EIT Health and the EIF. Corporate members and venture capital from across Europe will have the opportunity to leverage their in-kind and own resources with the support of EIT Health and EIF to better finance life sciences and healthcare start-ups.

As the Venture Centre of Excellence programme stems from a close working relationship between Luxembourg and Munich, Jean-Marc Bourez, EIT Health France Managing Director and Head of the Venture Centre of Excellence said, “We believe that the Venture Centre of Excellence will have a great economic, social, and health impact thanks to the additional investments that the start-ups will receive to support their growth. Paris is considered to be an international life science and healthcare hub as well as a robust financial area and EIT Health is delighted that the Region Ile-De-France will provide both financial support as well as a European base for the Venture Centre of Excellence operational team”.

This announcement of the operational base of the Venture Centre of Excellences comes following the signature of an MoU between EIT Health and EIF on September 13th, 2019 in Amsterdam. The formal cooperation agreement will be finalised in the coming weeks and operations, including the investment phase, which is expected to start in Q1 2020.