Imec, a world-leading research and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technologies An interview with Mr Luc VAN DEN HOVE, President & CEO, imec and global partners including universities and world-leading companies from a multitude of industries. Our unique environment ensures more interactions, higher creativity and better integrated technologies.
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Next to our R&D program offering, we also work together with companies on a bilateral basis, for private research. This can be an R&D collaboration supporting companies with the development of technological solutions to innovate their products and services. But this is not limited to R&D support: we offer support throughout the entire lifecycle of the innovation process. Whether it is hardware, software, or both. And for innovators from around the world, as well as for local initiatives in Flanders.
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hat are the key figures of R&D at imec? Imec brings together more than 4,000 people from over 97 nationalities. We are headquartered in Leuven and have distributed R&D groups at a number of Flemish universities, as well as in the Netherlands, Taiwan and the USA, and offices in China, India and Japan.
Could you tell us about imec’s smart health research? Imec leverages its expertise in chip design and chip technology, MEMS, bio-electronics, sensors, photonics, microfluidics, etc. to develop innovative tools for the life sciences, pharma R&D, clinical diagnostics, therapeutic and surgery, biopharma production and analytical biochemistry industries. Our IP is available for licensing, we provide research and development support, and we can also help companies with the prototyping, testing and manufacturing of their custom smart biochip solutions. We also combine electronics and data science to develop and validate wearable solutions for our partners’ health applications. We develop solutions for a variety of wearable health applications, focusing on medical devices and chronic disease management, as well as on a healthy lifestyle and preventive care…
Could you introduce your expertises? As a world-leading research and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technologies, we combine our leadership in microchip technology with profound software and ICT expertise. Add to this our world-class infrastructure and local and global ecosystem of partners across a multitude of industries. Together, we create groundbreaking innovation in the semiconductor industry as well as in application domains such as healthcare, smart cities and mobility, logistics and manufacturing, energy and education.
What do you see as the main challenges facing life sciences companies in the coming years? New diagnostics techniques are poised to play a crucial role in the future. These new techniques will have to be more sensitive, faster and cheaper so that we can test and treat all patients whenever there is a need. And this without overstretching the already heavily challenged healthcare budgets. Size, cost, power consumption, performance, sensitivity, within each patient’s reach and with medical accuracy and fast diagnostic results, become crucial parameters in research and diagnostics.
How is imec collaborating with companies across the world? We offer R&D partnerships as well as innovation services. We firmly believe in the synergy of R&D collaboration. Together with universities, companies and public stakeholders, we aim to maximize knowledge and expertise to push technology forward.
As a pioneer in nanoelectronics, imec brings the power of chip technology to the world of healthcare to drive the development of innovative tools for diagnostics, sequencing, cell & gene therapy, neurotech, implantable medical devices, medical imaging and more. With silicon technology, we have the ability to design and fabricate breakthrough miniaturized tools and instruments at low cost, high parallellisation and ultra-high precision.
All our R&D partners benefit from the unique assets that imec offers such as our state-of-the-art infrastructure, our top-of-theclass international talent with multidisciplinary scientific background, our unique IP, and our one-of-a-kind ecosystem of local 43
