MILAN (ITALPRESS) – Bayer Italia opens the doors of its Milan headquarters as part of Biotech Week for a web event all about the innovations that are revolutionizing the world of health.With “Treat the untreatable,” the pharmaceutical company takes stock of the goals, nearer and farther, that it wants to achieve in the management and treatment of diseases that are not yet curable today. The online conference, mediated by Bayer Italy’s Country Division Head Pharmaceuticals, Arianna Gregis, and Senior Advisor Pharmaceuticals Division, Salvatore Lenzo, had as special guest Lucio Iannone, Head of Venture Investments of Leaps by Bayer connected remotely from the United States. With him, the main topics of interest at the center of medical and pharmaceutical research today were touched upon, starting with Bayer’s ongoing efforts with Leaps, a project aimed at addressing ten of the biggest challenges facing the world today when it comes to health, seeking collaborations that can help find innovations that lead to therapeutic solutions for diseases that currently remain incurable.In this sense, the link between professional and patient associations, which often serve as the first engine to trigger the research process, is already crucial. “It is through collaboration with these bodies and other health stakeholders that we can really make a difference in people’s lives,” said Arianna Gregis.At the forefront, then, are the new approaches that technology enables toward rare diseases. In Italy it is estimated that more than one million people are affected by such a disease; in 72 percent of cases there is a genetic cause at the origin, but increasingly the onset is motivated by environmental factors, allergies and infections. The other great urgency is transplantation: there are about 8,000 people on the waiting list. For kidney transplantation, for example, we get to wait years, an infinite amount of time for patients who need it. It is no coincidence that 20 percent of those waiting for an organ fail to make it to transplant day. Here, then, are technological innovations trying to come to the rescue of struggling healthcare, both in Italy and abroad. The cultivation of artificial organs in genetically modified pigs is giving new hope to patients. “In the short term, I see developments in this area positively,” Iannone said during his talk from Boston. “We are seeing the significant impacts these transplants have on the health and quality of life of patients. The ambition is to treat two more people by 2025 giving them a survival expectancy of around 4-5 years. “Impossible not to mention the second leading cause of mortality in Italy: cancer. Compared to 2010, there has been a 36 percent increase in diagnoses: in 2023 alone, 395 thousand new cases were registered. The ambition is to one day be able to arrive at real vaccines that prevent cell degeneration at the base, but for the moment so much confidence is placed in therapies based on the use of stem cells. Dwelling precisely on possible vaccines, Iannone said, “There are studies under way for the prevention of familiar cancers, such as breast and ovarian cancer, but these are still projects that are in the first stage of research and will still need a few more years before they can be tested on humans. “The concluding theme of the conference could only be artificial intelligence, the technology par excellence that is slowly changing the way we live and approach problems. The application of this tool, whose potential is not yet exactly framed, is not only limited to machines, but is also being used for specific therapeutic pathways for diseases that one would not immediately think of. “For autism and attention deficits, virtual reality scenarios are being developed in which patients, especially children and adolescents, can improve their social skills,” Iannone further explained. “We are in the early stages, but progress is being made in this field as well. “Artificial intelligence has enormous potential. Bayer wants to seize this opportunity starting with research and development,” Gregis added. “Just think of the collaboration we have activated with Google Cloud to identify new therapeutic targets and also the TeraPiù app, which monitors patients’ adherence to therapy. We also have a new technological solution, Calantic, which helps radiology physicians with increasingly accurate diagnoses in less time.With “Treat the Untreatable,” Bayer Italy is therefore relaunching its cross-cutting commitment in the short and long term. “We have a great responsibility, because we are in the homes of one million Italians through our medicines,” Gregis concluded. “The goal is to be able to help more and more people to live a healthy life under the banner of prevention and treatment.”
– Italpress photo -(ITALPRESS).
