The Institute for Personalised Medicine and the National Laboratory for Tumour Gene Profiling were inaugurated on Tuesday at a ceremony at the Clinical Hospital Centre in Zagreb. This makes Croatia one of only 3 countries in Europe, along with Germany and Switzerland, to have such state-of-the-art facilities.

These advances will enable oncologists to develop a targeted and most effective therapy for each patient.

This achievement is the result of a five-year project in the field of personalised medicine in oncology, which aims to improve treatment outcomes. The project was carried out jointly by the Ministry of Health and the Clinical Hospital Centre Zagreb (KBC Zagreb) in cooperation with Roche, which invested nine million euros in the project.

In addition to setting up and equipping the laboratory for genetic testing, the project also included the establishment of the National Institute for Personalised Medicine and the training and further education of staff.

In the second phase, a Croatian oncology database will be established to monitor treatment outcomes and extend genetic testing to a wider range of tumour types.

The Institute for Personalised Medicine was inaugurated by Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic.

With the opening of this laboratory, KBC Zagreb is the third medical centre in Europe to have such ground-breaking facilities. It will not only comprehensively cover the needs of Croatian patients, but also offer services to neighbouring countries.

Plenkovic: Croatia will become a regional pioneer in the application of personalised medicine

Prime Minister Plenkovic expressed pride that Croatia is taking a regional lead in the application of personalised medicine and emphasised its central role in the global fight against cancer, a disease that is affecting more and more people worldwide.

“This laboratory in the field of oncology positions Croatia at the forefront of the world. I thank Roche for choosing Croatia to realise this important project,” said Plenkovic.

Plenkovic emphasised that 800 million euros are currently being invested in the healthcare system in Zagreb to renovate almost all hospitals and public healthcare facilities. Of this amount, 467 million euros will be invested in KBC Zagreb.

The laboratory has the capacity to meet the needs of neighbouring countries

The director of KBC Zagreb, Ante Corusic, said that the newly opened institute and laboratory will change the treatment paradigm not only in oncology, but also in neurology and cardiology, as the treatment approaches will now be at the molecular and genetic level. He also said that the cost of a single test is around €1,800 and that the pharmaceutical industry should bear the cost of ineffective therapies.

The head of the institute, Fran Borovecki, estimated that it will take one to two months to reach full operational capacity.

Currently, the institute has a team of seven experts with an annual testing capacity of 5000 samples, which can be expanded to 10,000. It is expected that the laboratory in Zagreb will also meet the needs of neighbouring countries and offer a range of advanced methods, such as liquid biopsy for comprehensive tumour genome profiling from blood samples as well as total DNA in cells.