Ospedale San Raffaele, in the framework of the EIC Transition new funding scheme in Horizon Europe, is proud to announce the start of PHIRE project (GA 101113193), the first project of its kind under coordination by OSR led by Massimo Alfano (group leader of Extracellular Microenvironments Unit), as Principal Investigator.
The EIC Transition scheme is a new and competitive funding scheme in Horizon Europe with the aim of supporting innovation activities that go beyond experimental proof of principle in the laboratory and to support the maturation and validation of new technologies demonstrated in relevant environment.
Starting with the outcomes obtained from EDIT project (FET Open project, GA 801126) a project that proposed transformative technology for the early detection and management of bladder cancer, PHIRE aims to bring close to market a novel high-resolution theranostic medical device effective in the clinical applications for cancer lesions smaller than 1 mm, ready for application in human bladder cancer and effective both in male and female patients.
Bladder cancer is the 10th most common cancer globally, with more than half million new cases every year, but it is the most expensive cancer to be treated with an expenditure of 9 billion dollars every year. The reason for such high expenditure is due to the fact that the current diagnostic imaging techniques do not allow detection and thus surgical removal of bladder tumor smaller than 1 millimetre, and in particular when they are flat. Second, half of the bladder cancers are resistant to the therapy. Because of these diagnostic and therapeutic limitations about 200.000 patients every year, and for many years after diagnosis, have tumor relapse and undergo multiple surgical and therapeutic interventions.
The PHIRE consortium coordinated by San Raffaele Hospital (OSR_IT) is composed by interdisciplinary partners: a public university as the University of Bologna (UNIBO_IT), a small-medium enterprise as Ascend Technologies LTD (AT_UK), a company as META Group (META_BE), and the industrial partner Fujifilm Visualsonics (FFSS_Netherlands).
The future perspectives of this study are the application of the PHIRE platform in clinical trials, to improve the quality of life of patients while reducing the social costs of bladder cancer management.
