The Ri.MED Foundation enters the governance of ISMETT IRCCS.

An integrated center for research and high specialty care is born in Italy for the benefit of the patients and of the economic development of Southern Italy and of the entire country.

Palermo, 29 June 2017 – The Ri.MED Foundation, established by the Presidency of the Italian Council of Ministers, has joined the governance of ISMETT IRCCS creating an important integration in Sicily between biomedical research and patient care that will become an important model in Italy of a research center integrated with a highly specialized hospital where research outcomes can be “translated” guaranteeing a complete integration between doctors and researchers.

This will result in a center of national and international relevance able to generate an important chain of development: results of basic research, in terms of scientific discoveries, will give life to products with a high added value both for clinical activity (i.e. direct impact on the quality and health of individuals) and economy, in terms of the growth and quality of Sicily and Italy.

The Ri.MED Foundation was established in 2006 with a decree of the Presidency of the Italian Council of Ministers, as an international partnership between the Italian Government, the Region of Sicily, the Italian National Research Council (CNR), the University of Pittsburgh, and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). Ri.MED Foundation is based in Palermo, Sicily, and its goal is to directly or indirectly promote, support and conduct research projects and programs in the field of biotechnologies, with particular reference to the transferability of biomedical outcomes.

In recent months, the bid is in progress to award the construction works for the Foundation’s Biomedical Research and Biotechnology Center (BRBC) in Carini, Palermo, where no less than 600 researchers will work full time.

The Region of Sicily’s Health Commissioner Mr. Baldo Gucciardi, commented: “It is with great pleasure that we welcome the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, through the Ri.MED Foundation, in the governance of ISMETT IRCCS. This strengthens the credibility of the entire Sicilian offer in the field of health care, medicine, and research. I also believe this process will allow one of our top hospitals, ISMETT IRCCS, to accomplish increasingly important goals for its patients.”

Laura Raimondo, managing director of UPMC Italy, the minority shareholder of ISMETT IRCCS that manages ISMETT with Civico Hospital (majority shareholder) and, as of today, the Ri.MED Foundation, commented: “This integration established with the new agreement sets out an ambitious project not just for Southern Italy but for the entire country. This is the result of an international partnership set up with the aim of becoming one of the pillars of Italian and European research. This project received bipartisan support and attention from numerous Italian governments and is in line with the initiatives that the current and previous governments have initiated and supported in other areas of Italy”.

The Ri.MED Foundation expressed satisfaction for “this integration in the governance of ISMETT that will allow both institutions to pursue ever more effectively the purposes for which they were created: improving health care also through clinical research and translational activity and create new opportunities for growth and development. The many young doctors and researchers who work and will work at ISMETT and Ri.MED see this integration and the upcoming realization of the Ri.MED’s research center in Carini as an extraordinary opportunity to fulfill their dreams”.