Novartis is reimagining medicine to improve and extend people’s lives. As a leading global medicines company, we use innovative science and digital technologies to create transformative treatments in areas of great medical need. In our quest to find new medicines, we consistently rank among the world’s top companies investing in research and development. Our products reach nearly 800 million people globally and we are finding innovative ways to expand access to our latest treatments.
Novartis has embarked on an ambitious transformation to become the leading medicines company powered by data science and digital technologies, investing in the most promising frontiers of science, the most exciting innovations in the business of medicine, and the most significant healthcare needs. Our footprint in Portugal reflects this ambition.
We continuously reinforce our clinical trials capabilities, guaranteeing that patients have access to our innovations, earlier. Novartis has contributed significantly to clinical research with an investment of 30M € in Portugal in the last five years1 , being recognized by INFARMED, in 2019, as one of the companies with the greatest contribution in the field of clinical research. In 2020 only, our activities involved more than 140 research centers and collaboration with hundreds of researchers, physicians, nurses, and coordinators, with an opportunity to promote our talent, knowledge and competencies on R&D.
As a strong innovation player, we also want to be part of and contribute to fostering entrepreneurship in Portugal beyond the traditional R&D activities. We want to show ourselves available to listen and understand how we can help through our international network, our knowledge and know how and our technology. We want to be seen as a representative of Portugal within the ‘Novartis world’.
Scicare – Novartis Health Science Accelerator is an example of this. The program is a challengeto the Portuguese research community and teams seeking to develop promising leads/ compounds or diagnostic tests/markers currently undergoing pre-clinical stages. The course is designed to help them create a full development program and have selected eight research teams in the first edition, in 2020.
Health is possibly one of the areas that can benefit most from new solutions that facilitate health promotion and disease management and open innovation is an excellent way to potentiate multi-stakeholder and industry alliances to address the system needs, avoiding duplication of efforts, investment and ensuring that technologies are developed in the most efficient and effective way possible.
Techcare is a program designed to connect the most disruptive startups in healthcare with Novartis professionals and experts. The program positions Novartis as a launching platform, providing technological support in the realization and feasibility of ideas or projects. It challenges experienced prototype startups or those already in the testing phase to develop tools, solutions or methods that meet the needs of Novartis and its customers and partners, promoting innovation in the health ecosystem. From the two editions implemented there are already examples of partnerships happening with local and international startups.
These examples portray the way we work, collaborate and the way we want to be seen among ‘Novartis world’ – an innovative and risk taking organization, eager to implement new approaches that can be leveraged further in other countries. Quite often, we are chosen to implement pilots that can then be scalable to other countries, our market is permeable to it. We believe that our ability to develop science and technology depends on the ability to harness talent and ideas wherever they exist. This can only be achieved through active dialogue and cooperation between science and society, between the private and public sectors, and involving citizens who will benefit from this innovation. Novartis is part of this dialogue.
