The Mirandola Biomedical District is today considered the world’s third largest hub in this sector and 90% of the provincial industry is concentrated here. The potential for development of companies in the biomedical district can be reinforced by their ability to use the results of institutional research and link their own competences with those of the university and health care system with the objective of identifying new paths of product and process innovation and generating new manufacturing units capable of placing on the market new products/services that are the fruits of research.

The companies in the biomedical sector, represented by reference business associations, are thus interested in establishing structured forms of collaboration with health care and research institutions in the province of Modena for the purpose of assessing the clinical, organisational, economic, social and ethical repercussions and consequences of health care technologies. For their own part, the University - Hospital Polyclinic of Modena and the Modena Local Health Unit are in a forefront position in terms of quality and the multiple technological resources in their possession and are most suitably qualified to concretely assess technologies, manage safety and clinical risk, verify effectiveness and analyse the cost-effectiveness of health services. The University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, through its Faculties of Medicine and Surgery and Biosciences and Biotechnologies, has achieved research results in the sector of genetic therapies with adult stem cells that are extremely advanced at the international level. It has developed and made available sophisticated research technologies for studying the interactions between biological systems and materials used for biomedical devices and boasts significant experience in designing and conducting controlled clinical trials. It moreover aims to broaden and further knowledge at all levels with respect to biomedical technologies and their potential uses in clinical practice. DemoCenter-Sipe, Innovation and Technology Transfer Centre of the province of Modena, represents a unified, easy-to-use point of access meeting the demands for innovation of businesses within the province, in particular those in the biomedical district. The Centre is able to provide answers to entrepreneurial needs and identify the solutions and structures most suitable for undertaking specific business development projects, which it directly controls and supervises. It can thus offer important support in the planning and development of pre-clinical and/or clinical trial projects for a medical device and the validation of medical devices, equipment and instruments.Within the scope of its institutional functions, the Provincial Authority of Modena intends to favour the environmental conditions most conducive to the development of the province’s production system by promoting initiatives aimed at incentivising research, innovation and qualification as the main factors for competitiveness and social cohesion within the territory. The Unione dei Comuni Modenesi Area Nord (Union of Municipalities of the Province of Modena – Northern Area) aims to promote the socioeconomic system within the area of reference by steering it toward qualitative development founded on innovation, optimal exploitation of the results of institutional research and the quality of human resources.

In view of the foregoing, the business associations of the Mirandola biomedical district, the University - Hospital Polyclinic of Modena, the Modena Local Health Unit, the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, the Provincial Authority of Modena, the Unione dei Comuni Modenesi Area Nord and DemoCenter-Sipe signed a continuous partnership agreement in 2005, renewed in 2007, for the creation of a Quality Center Network that would provide the Mirandola biomedical district with a permanent system to support the activities of innovation and qualification of human resources through networks linking health care and research institutions and companies in the biomedical sector.