With the mission of "the right drug, at the right dose, at the right time, to the right patient“, the Interreg North-West Europe Codex4SMEs project kicked off in September 2017. Thanks to its great success, the nine partners from six EU countries were awarded a second grant. Now in its second edition, the Interreg NWE Codex4SMEs project will support developers and manufacturers of innovative diagnostics to make personalized healthcare accessible and affordable for everyone in Europe. The funding programme aims to support small and medium-sized (SME) companies in the life sciences and medical technology sectors engaged in the development of diagnostics. A key point to highlight is that all categories of diagnostics are supported, including in vitro and in vivo diagnostics. The consortium, with a new line-up, has set up a so-called Fast-Track Programme to bring diagnostics to market faster, offering SMEs a wide range of services along the entire value chain.

SMEs from the life sciences or medical technology sector with headquarters located in a North-West Europe country are eligible to apply for various free services. The costs for services are covered by the EU-funded Interreg NWE Codex4SMEs project.

Moreover, Codex4SMEs offers a large network for diagnostics and personalized medicine in North-West Europe, which has grown continuously since the start of the project and has supported almost 300 SMEs with numerous activities so far (status 2022). For the formation of collaborations and for networking, an online matchmaking platform for personalized medicine as well as an online network are available to all actors in the healthcare sector, where the actors can publish their different competences.

BioRegio STERN Management GmbH is the German lead partner in the second edition of the Interreg project, which was launched in March 2021. For the project term of two years it will receive close to 995,000 euros, of which 60 per cent will come from subsidies.

A total of eight partners are working together led by BioRegio STERN:

• BOM Holding BV (Technology support Brabantse Ontwikkelings Maatschappij), NL
• Innovation and Management Centre Limited T/A WestBIC, IE
• InnovationQuarter, NL
• Medicen Paris Region, FR
• Integrated BioBank of Luxembourg - IBBL, LU
• EIT Health Germany GmbH, DE
• European Research Infrastructure for Translational Medicine - EATRIS, NL
• FlandersBio, BE