Billion-euro investment for clinical laboratory IT solutions

The development of clinical laboratory IT solutions over the coming five years is to be an area of around €1 billion (£830 million) in private and public investment, according to Fondazione Bruno Kessler.

After beating off stiff competition, the foundation has been named as the newest member of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT).

It is this that leads it to predict substantial investment, as EIT's ICT laboratories already have €1 billion of funding in place for the coming five years.

The foundation hopes to play its own role in developing the clinical laboratory IT solutions required by - and created by - Italian researchers in the years to come.

Foundation president Andrea Zanotti says: "Competition in EIT is an important development platform not only for Fondazione Bruno Kessler but for the entire research system in Trentino."

Based in the northern Italy province of Trentino, the foundation has more than 350 researchers and its studies centre on IT, Italo-Germanic subjects, religion, and materials and microsystems.