Economy minister Franz Fayot (LSAP) and a delegation from his ministry ended their working visit to Germany by visiting the digital health cluster Medical Valley in Erlangen, Bavaria, and signing a cooperation agreement for the development of digital health applications and profitable services for the newly announced HE:AL campus, scheduled to open in Esch-sur-Alzette in 2024.

The cooperation agreement was signed by Fayot, and members of the board of directors of Medical Valley and dmac GmbH--Jörg Trinkwalter and Prof. Dr. Jürgen Schüttler--to collaborate in allowing market access for companies active in digital health applications sphere, providing a pathway for products in the pre-commercial phase.

“Through this agreement, our ambition is to position Luxembourg as a key player in the field of digital health technologies and as an ecosystem of choice for companies active in digital health applications that wish to access the Luxembourg and European markets," said Fayot on the signing of the deal.

Luxembourg intents to follow in Germany’s footsteps and introduce legislation allowing for doctors to prescribe digital health applications as a means for patients to care for themselves, in the same way as medicines.

Legislation would also make it possible to obtain reimbursement from the social security system.

The Medical Valley European Metropolitan Region Nuremberg (EMN) is an international innovation ecosystem in the field of healthcare management, with around 240 members from the world of business, science, healthcare and politics. Together their aim is to digitalise and monetise healthcare.

“We truly believe that digitalisation in general and specifically digital therapeutics are key for increasing the efficiency and efficacy in healthcare and have great economic potential," said Jörg Trinkwalter, CEO and member of the executive board of Medical Valley.

On the same day, Fayot met with Bernd Montag, CEO of Siemens Healthineers, where they discussed their “shared vision of digitalisation in general and in the field of healthcare in particular,” a government press release said. The government communication continues to detail the meeting by stating, “they exchanged views on the opportunities of digitalisation for the benefit of society and the economy… especially in the context of the Artificial Intelligence Act, currently under negotiation at European level.”

The two men concluded their meeting by talking about the possibility of implementing artificial intelligence-based tools to “extract actionable value from data”, which according to them would lead to better diagnostic and therapeutic decisions.