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Innovative Pharmaceutical Initiative – iF!
Delaying Alzheimer’s disease
Scientists are investigating more than 100 new drugs that could enable patients to live more independently.
More pain‑free days for people with migraines
New therapies in development will reduce migraine attacks and enable patients to enjoy a better quality of life.
Preventing infections
Microbiome therapies can prevent the recurrence of infections caused by Clostridium difficile. The number of cases could be reduced by 90%.
Preventing liver transplantation
Therapies for non-alcoholic steatohepatitis can reduce the buildup of fat in the liver. As a result, as many as 12,000 Europeans per year could avoid the need for a liver transplant.
Fight against diabetes
With cell therapies, blood sugar levels could be controlled in nearly 4 million Europeans living with type 1 diabetes.
Creating a world without hemophilia B
Gene therapy can improve the quality of life of people living with disease by reducing the need for intensive, lifelong treatment.
Fighting blood cancer
CAR‑T cell therapy could cure cancers that are currently incurable.
Better prospects for patients with lung cancer
Combination therapy could prevent the deaths of 30,000 people with non-small cell lung cancer.
Fighting bacterial infections
With more than 1,000 medicines in development, antibacterial antibodies could save 25,000 lives every year in Europe.
Bacterial infections
We won't rest until antibacterial monoclonal antibodies succeed in slowing antibiotic resistance and fighting bacterial infections.
Type 1 diabetes
We won't rest until cell therapy replaces regular insulin therapy for patients with diabetes.
Alzheimer’s disease
Alzheimer’s disease is one of the greatest public health crises in Europe, but we will not give up until new treatments stop the progression of the disease.
Lung cancer
Using combination treatment increases their effectiveness, helping people with lung cancer live longer; there will be no respite until non‑small cell lung cancer can be brought under control or even cured.
Haemophilia
Gene therapy offers the potential to transform the lives of patients with haemophilia B, and we will not relent until similar rare diseases can be eased or cured.
Blood cancer
We won't rest until CAR‑T cell therapy helps patients avoid lifelong treatment.
HeMED
HeMED is your place to access reliable medical information.
Health begins with knowledge, and HeMED offers safe and verified health information.
HeMED (Croatian Electronic Medical Education) is an online platform that provides everyone with free access to verified medical information on desktop or via an app – clearly, accessibly, and in the Croatian language. It is a digital platform used by doctors and patients for ongoing learning and information.
What does HeMED enable?
- It enables medical books and textbooks to be searched by key terms.
- It connects medical books with each other.
- It links medical books with the HALMED drug database and the HZZO drug list.
- It offers reverse searching; if you click on a drug in the HALMED database, you can see where that drug is mentioned in the books.
- It provides information such as changes to the HZZO drug list, prices, guidelines, and indications.
- Each drug includes a summary of its description, and there is the possibility to report adverse effects.
While it offers physicians easier access to professional literature and better information connectivity, the platform also provides significant benefits to patients. It helps strengthen health literacy and provides people with tools to better understand diseases, therapies, and medications. Informed patients better understand their condition, respond in a timely manner, and collaborate more actively with their physicians.
A lot of work, energy, and synergy from everyone involved in the platform’s development has been invested in this project. Through collaboration between professionals and industry, as an example of public-private partnership, HeMED is a socially responsible project and a joint gift from HLK, iF!, and Placebo to the community.
Meet HeMED – a unique e-platform for continuous education of physicians and patients!
The Croatian healthcare system has been enriched with HeMED – a Croatian multimodal platform that will serve the continuous education of physicians and patients. It is a comprehensive digital tool, the first of its kind in the world, aimed at continuous medical education.
The main significance of HeMED lies in the fact that it is not only a place for education but also a unique platform of interconnected content. Its main functionalities are searching book content by key terms, interactive linking of different books, and interactive linking of each medical book with the HALMED drug database and the drug list of the Croatian Health Insurance Fund.
The searchability works in the opposite direction as well, i.e., by clicking on a drug in the HALMED database, links open to the sections of textbooks where that drug is mentioned. The HeMED portal allows searching all changes to the HZZO drug list, prices, guidelines, and indications, and for each drug, a summary description is available along with the possibility to directly report adverse effects of its use.
Over the past three years, more than 300 physicians have voluntarily translated over 10,000 pages of these books, which required medical knowledge and an excellent command of the English language. The HeMED platform is a Croatian IT product by the company Utilis, and the translations were carried out on a French platform that allows tracking changes in the text of the original editions, enabling continuous updating of the texts.
The project holder is the Croatian Medical Chamber, and the project’s conceptual initiator and founder of the company Placebo, Dr. Ivančević, secured the copyright for the individual editions. The project was realized with strong support from the Innovative Pharmaceutical Initiative, an association that brings together innovative pharmaceutical manufacturers in the Croatian market.
We are proud to be a partner of this project and have provided funding for the development of the platform and copyright costs. Besides the immense importance of HeMED for the continuous education of current and future physicians, we recognized the additional significance of the project for citizens’ health literacy. A high level of health literacy helps people recognize diseases in time and potentially prevent their further progression, contributing to better management of chronic diseases. Health literacy influences a healthier lifestyle and the efficiency of the healthcare system. One of the key goals of the innovative pharmaceutical industry is to improve treatment outcomes by applying the best possible innovative medical solutions, and HeMED will make a significant contribution to this,’ said Sani Pogorilić, CEO of iF!.
HeMED is a platform also intended for laypeople, and at the beginning of next year, citizens will be able to use and search the Croatian translation of the latest edition of the Medical Handbook for Patients, which will also be networked and interactively searchable with the HALMED drug database. The HeMED project will continue to be developed, and the entire platform has been designed to allow the addition of subsequent content, i.e., new books that will be translated.
A lot of work, energy, and synergy from everyone involved in the platform’s development has been invested in this project. Through collaboration between professionals and industry, as an example of public-private partnership, HeMED is a socially responsible project and a joint gift from HLK, iF!, and Placebo to the community.