European Virtual Human Twins initiative: official launch in Barcelona

The European Virtual Human Twins (VHT) Initiative is a flagship initiative of the European Commission to foster and accelerate the development of integrated, validated digital representations of the human body. These VHTs hold substantial potential for medical research and healthcare delivery, contributing to a deeper understanding of human physiology, pathology, and disease aetiology, as well as facilitating personalised, patient-centric medicine. This Initiative includes the envisaged European VHT platform, enabling the pooling of resources and assets to further develop the science and technology required for building advanced VHT-based solutions in health and care.

The VHT Initiative was officially launched on the occasion of the inauguration of the MareNostrum 5 supercomputer at the Barcelona Supercomputer Center, on December 21st 2023. During the launch event, we heard from high level representatives of the European Commission (Thomas Skordas), the Catalan and the Spanish government about the expectations and the current investments made in the VHT. Next, Alfonso Valencia (BSC) introduced the VHT Manifesto “A Statement of Intent on Development, Evidence, and Adoption in Healthcare Systems”. This Statement of Intent serves the purpose of promoting collaboration in the current VHT ecosystem, by bringing together various ecosystem stakeholders to demonstrate their support for the European VHT Initiative, while also facilitating the context for further collaboration. The Manifesto has already been signed by over 75 organisations including small and large companies, universities, civil society organizations, practitioner organization. If you want to read the Manifesto or you want your organization to join, please visit the website (http://www.virtualhumantwins.eu – going live end of December, or contact info@edith-csa.eu for instructions).

To wrap up the event, the floor was given by the different stakeholders in a Round Table, including speakers from discussing big industry (Elisa Gastaldi – Siemens Healthineers, Joland Rutgers – Philips), from innovative start-ups (Luca Emili – InSilicoTrials), from academia (Irène Vignon-Clementel – INRIA), healthcare providers (Frank Rademakers – KU Leuven) and patient organisations (Elisabeth Kasilingam – European Multiple Sclerosis Platform & European Patients Forum). Together they discussed the importance of the VHT for EU’s healthcare and competitiveness, the factors allowing to build and sustain trust in it, and, finally, the critical next steps for the realisation of the VHT’s full potential. At the end of the Round Table, the moderator (Liesbet Geris – VPH Institute, ULiège, KU Leuven) summarized the discussion in 3 main concepts: inclusion, sustainability and harmonization.

• Inclusion of all relevant stakeholders, in all phases of the process and making sure to not leave anyone behind
• Inclusion of all technologies, data types coming from digital, experimental and clinical sources, and interoperating with existing initiatives, both public and private
• Sustainability of the infrastructure so it can become a pillar for the ecosystem supporting activities from foundation research to industrial and clinical translation
• Sustainability in terms of funding – be it from private or public sources. Establishing a clear vision for commercial activities on short, middle and long term
• Harmonisation of the approaches for e.g. reporting and metadata, supported by appropriate standards, IPR arrangements and an fit-for-purpose legislative, ethical and regulatory frameworks
• and last but not least, harmonisation of language between different communities and stakeholders within the VHT ecosystem in Europe and beyond.

Together these points form a high level agenda for the VHT ecosystem, setting interesting challenges for the future in order to realise the potential of the VHT. Something that can only be realised when supported by a coherent vision, the necessary funding and infrastructure, and driven by a collaborative ecosystem.

If you want to be informed of the next VHT event, please register on the EDITH mailinglist. If you want to contribute to the development of the roadmap, please join us in Paris on the 18^th and 19^th of January (https://www.edith-csa.eu/vht-ecosystem-meeting/). If you want your application, models or data sets to be included in the EDITH repository, please visit the call for use cases.

Links:

• Virtual Human Twins Digital Strategy
• www.virtualhumantwins.eu (will go live in the coming days)
• www.edith-csa.eu