Munich university medical centers join forces

7/18/2023
Reading time 3 min.

The Munich excellence universities, their university hospitals and Helmholtz Munich have signed a letter of intent to establish a new medical alliance. The M1 – Munich Medicine Alliance will strategically pool the strengths of the member institutions with the goal of establishing an overarching brand identity for Munich as a center of medical excellence. It is part of the new medical initiative of the state of Bavaria: the Highmed Agenda Bayern.

Prof. Thomas F. Hofmann, President of the Technical University of Munich — Prof. Thomas F. Hofmann (left), President of TUM, and LMU's president Prof. Bernd Huber signing the letter of intent to establish "M1 – Munich Medical Alliance".

With the M1 – Munich Medicine Alliance, the research partners will pursue the strategic objective of combining the remarkable strengths of Munich’s medical institutions to stand alongside the world’s leading medical locations. In pursuit of this goal, they will create common infrastructures for clinical studies, platform technologies and data integration. Translational projects will accelerate the conversion of new knowledge and technologies from lab results into patient treatments.

“This will make Munich the leading center for university medicine nationwide and Germany’s number one medical location. We are bringing together the best with the best. The Munich university clinics already treat more patients every year than any other university medical location in Germany,” says Bavarian science minister Markus Blume.

“With the ONE MUNICH strategy, the Munich universities, with their future concepts rooted in the Excellence Strategy of the federal and state governments, have begun the process of bundling their leading competencies in high-potential fields and fully capturing unused synergies. We are now joining forces with all actors to focus this cooperative strategy on the enormous potential of university medicine in Munich,” says Prof. Thomas F. Hofmann, President of the Technical University of Munich (TUM). “I welcome the strong commitment of the Bavarian state government to our Munich Medicine Alliance concept, which will prepare Munich to compete successfully at the global level in the medical world of the future.”

Highmed Agenda presented

The letter of intent was signed at the medical summit of the Bavarian state government at the Center for Translational Cancer Research at TUM (TranslaTUM). Minister of science Markus Blume and the Bavarian minister of health Klaus Holetschek also presented the central points of a new, large-scale Bavarian funding program: the Highmed Agenda“.

Health minister Holetschek stated: “We can be proud of our medical care in Bavaria, both in our cities and in rural areas. We already have more than 400 clinical locations in Bavaria providing the highest standards of modern in-patient care. In addition, the public can rely on more than 17,500 practices for outpatient care. That is outstanding!”

Science minister Blume said: “Our prescription for leading-edge medicine in the future: the Highmed Agenda Bayern. It will usher in a new era of advanced medicine and represents a new investment offensive in the medical field – the conceptual extension of the Hightech Agenda Bayern, the state’s multi-billion euro technology program. With our six university clinics, we are already well positioned in leading-edge medicine. But we want to keep improving and deliver faster and more effective treatment and cures for patients. Personalized medicine: that is the big promise for the future.”

Five key areas

The agenda is centered around five key areas. Along with an accelerated increase in professorships and student places, the initiative will also launch a digitalization offensive with a Bavarian health data cloud and intensify the use of AI and robotics in preventive care and treatment. Other priorities include the further expansion of medical infrastructure, new freedoms for university medicine, for instance through the amended Bavarian University Clinic Act, which took effect in 2023. And finally, M1 – Munich Medicine Alliance is part of the fifth key area: promoting cooperation. Along with the alliance, centers dedicated to specific fields will be created throughout the state. Possible focal areas include, for example, a Bavarian vaccine center and a personalized medicine center.

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