As part of its commitment to fostering international collaboration and strengthening global innovation networks, CEBR member bioPmed participated in an institutional mission to Canada together with Bioindustry Park Silvano Fumero and key regional stakeholders from Piedmont, Italy.
Bioindustry Park Silvano Fumero and bioPmed – Piemonte Healthcare Cluster took part, representing the research and innovation system in the health sector, in the Piedmont mission to Canada, held from April 13 to 16 in Montréal and Toronto. Promoted by the Piedmont Region, with Regional Ministers Andrea Tronzano (Productive Activities Development, Internationalisation and Investment Attraction) and Federico Riboldi (Health), the initiative involved an institutional delegation including the City of Turin, the Turin Chamber of Commerce, Unioncamere Piemonte, Ceipiemonte, as well as Politecnico di Torino, the University of Turin, the University of Eastern Piedmont, the Piedmont Aerospace Cluster, in collaboration with the Government of Québec and the Italian System.
The mission, aimed at attracting new investments to Piedmont and strengthening the international positioning of the regional production system, concluded with a concrete agenda to turn decades of collaboration into a structured axis focused on aerospace, life sciences and healthcare, with measurable targets in terms of investment, employment and regional development. In particular, meetings with key players in the Canadian life sciences ecosystem enabled the exploration of opportunities for collaboration in research, innovation and industrial development, consolidating relationhips with one of the most advanced markets structurally aligned with highly specialised European value chains.
Bioindustry Park and bioPmed as hubs of the Piedmont life sciences ecosystem
“The mission – explained Antonio Salvi, President of Bioindustry Park – is part of a broader strategy to strengthen the international collaborations of Bioindustry Park and the bioPmed Cluster, which act as drivers of development for the life sciences industry and healthcare innovation. Meetings with leading Canadian organisations in the strategic life sciences sector highlighted the significant potential for collaboration with the Piedmont system and helped further consolidate relationships between companies in the two ecosystems.”
Within this framework, shared operational priorities were identified to support business internationalisation, including soft-landing programmes, collaborations in clinical studies and access to respective research, clinical and industrial networks, with the aim of facilitating entry into both Canadian and European markets.
The mission began in Québec, with a stop in Montréal (April 13–14), where the delegation – including Sara Falvo, Head of Strategic Innovation at Bioindustry Park and Manager of the bioPmed Cluster, Pietro Presti, Strategic Advisor to the Scientific Committee of Bioindustry Park, and Giovanni Mensirepresenting the Healthcare Commission of Confindustria Piemonte – visited Citè Biotech (Laval) and the Quebec Life Sciences Incubator & Accelerator, which provided insights into models and tools supporting the growth of startups and biotech companies, and met with Montréal InVivo, the leading life sciences cluster in Québec. The discussions highlighted strong strategic alignment between the clusters and initiated a process to define a collaboration agreement, to be finalised during the meeting of Canadian and Italian partners at the BIO Convention in San Diego 2026. The agreement aims to structure joint initiatives for business matching, soft-landing programmes and international promotion activities for companies, also within shared events.
The mission continued with a meeting at the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), a leading centre for clinical and translational research, and a visit to the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM), a hospital and research hub characterised by strong integration between care, research and innovation, through its Centre d’innovation (CIM).
During the Toronto stops in Ontario (April 15–16), the delegation visited the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, SickKids – one of the world’s leading paediatric hospitals – and Humber River Hospital, engaging with a highly integrated ecosystem combining research, clinical practice and innovation, confirming the importance of public-private networks as key lever for healthcare innovation.
“These meetings highlighted strong complementarities and led to the identification of initial operational directions for collaboration in digital health, genetics and the advanced use of clinical data and artificial intelligence for early diagnosis, predictive medicine and the optimisation of care pathways – explained Sara Falvo and Pietro Presti – Among the priority actions currently being activated are developing joint projects in translational medicine and clinical studies, launching training and exchange programmes for researchers and clinicians, as well as initiatives to support and scale innovative startups, including through access to infrastructure, data platforms and qualified networks.”
Discussions also laid the groundwork for structured collaborations and the launch of joint projects under Horizon Europe calls, particularly in light of Canada’s eligibility, as a concrete lever to develop shared initiatives and strengthen mutual access to skills, infrastructure and markets.
“In this context, Bioindustry Park Silvano Fumero and the bioPmed Innovation Cluster act as coordination and facilitation hubs, bringing together stakeholders from the Piedmont ecosystem and supporting the implementation of collaborations with Canadian partners,” conclude Falvo and Presti.
About Bioindustry Park Silvano Fumero and bioPmed
Bioindustry Park Silvano Fumero is a leading Life Sciences and Human Health science and technology park in Piedmont, operating through a successful public-private collaboration model since the 1990s. As a Benefit Corporation since 2022, the Park combines research, innovation and sustainable growth, hosting 42 organisations including multinational companies, startups, SMEs and research centres across a 76,000 sqm campus near Turin. With more than €80 million attracted in investments over the last three years, it serves as a major innovation hub supporting startups and internationalisation through advanced laboratories, production facilities and strong institutional networks.
The Park also manages bioPmed, a healthcare innovation cluster bringing together 92 members and around 900 stakeholders from the regional ecosystem to promote collaboration between research and industry, stimulate innovation and strengthen the competitiveness of the life sciences sector.
