The French Healthcare Innovation & Business Forum has been created to help French healthcare stakeholders in their international expansion. As, paradoxically, since the Covid 19 epidemic, the market has shrunk, due to increased competition and reduced international travel, even though every country in the world has put healthcare at the top of their preoccupations. “We have noticed that despite their internationally recognized expertise, French businesses are sometimes hesitant to set up operations in certain foreign markets that have a reputation for being complex,” said Johanna Lerfel, General Delegate atFrench Healthcare Association.
French Healthcare has therefore decided to bring these international decision-makers to Paris, to help French businesses establish initial constructive contacts. The event was attended by forty public and private companies (care establishments, CHU, professional associations, universities, research centers, SME/SMI, pharmaceutical groups…) representing French healthcare competences and expertise.
The delegations invited consisted of representatives of the public and private sectors (ministries, public institutions, private and public healthcare establishments, distributors, prescribers, manufacturers, investors,…) from the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia and Eastern Europe.
“The French Healthcare Innovation & Business Forum is a new B2B and BtoG international event. Its aim is to develop business relationships and collaborations between French stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem and foreign organizations, positioning France as a country at the forefront of health innovation,” Johanna Lerfel, General Delegate atFrench Healthcare Association.
A dedicated platform was used to organize 450 official meetings, in addition to informal meetings. Four international cooperation agreements were signed in the process, with the Ministry of Health of Moldova, the UPA (the Egyptian authority responsible for healthcare procurement), the Kenya Healthcare Federation and the Rwanda Healthcare Federation. French Healthcare, as an entity, will oversee these cooperations. “Our aim was that at the end of these two days, concrete steps would be put in place,”said Johanna Lerfel. Objective achieved.
The Institut Curie has also consolidated a cooperation agreement with Kazakhstan, which is expected to result in increased education and training for Kazakh health professionals and Kazakh patients being admitted to the Institute.
At the same time, conferences and workshops were offered to provide help on themes linked to the international scope of French healthcare solutions, health trends and innovations and also certain key international market requirements.
This event is being organized in connection with the Innovation Santé 2030 plan, which has set itself the challenge of making France the leading innovative and sovereign nation in the field of healthcare. “The forum serves both of these objectives. We must sell more and export our expertise to be more resilient,” said Johanna Lerfel. The stronger we are, the more we will be able to offer patients higher quality solutions. This forum has shown the international representatives present that France is able to come together as a community and address healthcare issues.”
The forum took place in three different venues: the Quai d’Orsay (Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs), the Hôtel National des Invalides and the startup accelerator Future4Care, thus proving that “France is a country with a powerful history, where industry is very old and well-established, and that knows how to renew itself,” the General Delegate at French Healthcare Association added.
The Forum will convene again on September 18 – 19, 2023. An invitation will be sent to fifty or so French businesses, to guarantee the human scale of the forum, in accordance with the wishes of the organizers.
