Turin and the future of healthcare: evolution and collaboration between public and private sectors.

With equal public resources and services, the Piedmont public health sector can grow in value from 11,7% to 14,2% of the regional GDP, which in 2023 was equivalent to 138 billion euros. This is what a study by the Luigi Einaudi Research and Documentation Center reports, presented at the conference “The evolution of the health supply chain – The future of public-private collaborations” organized by Confindustria Piemonte in collaboration with UniCredit.

"Identifying that of health as an industrial chain that can grow and bring benefits to the regional economy and its population, is the key to understanding on which the Piedmontese Confindustria system intends to commit itself by promoting full and constant collaboration between the public and private sectors. For this reason, we believe that a method defined also through a memorandum of understanding that regulates mutual commitments and allows for the exchange of information, considerations, experiences and experiments that can foster the innovation necessary to maintain the universality of the health service and at the same time the growth of the GDP of the sector may be appropriateHe explains Alberta Pasquero, president of the Health and Life Sciences Commission of Confindustria Piemonte.

Currently, the care of people in Piedmont has a demand equal to 8,6% of the GDP, mainly through public funding which in 2024 was equal to 9,43 billion, with a public employment of 66 thousand workers and a total employment of 166 thousand people, which adding the indirect workers, reaches up to 278 thousand equivalent work units, equal to 15% of regional employed people. The directly and indirectly activated GDP therefore rises to 18,2 billion, equal to 11,7% of the 2023 regional GDP.

"With Finpiemonte, companies, investment attraction agencies and us as the regional health department, we want to start a project to develop the health industry in Piedmont. We want to work on all the sectors involved: from research to distribution and logistics, from innovation to hospital facilities, without creating new superstructures but through Finpiemonte. The important thing is that all these subjects talk to each other and create a strategic project on this sector, to increase the attractiveness of Piedmont compared to other Italian regions, but also looking at foreign companiesHe explains Federico Riboldi, Councilor for Health of the Piedmont Region.

A great untapped potential, also confirmed in the analysis of the Einaudi Center, because health spending activates research, new technologies and spreads innovations that come from all over the world, and that could arise more from the regional economic territory, which has a vocation for hi-tech and innovation. Platforms where care and innovation go hand in hand have generated the success of foreign cases, both in Europe, in Lille, and in the United States, in Akron.

To estimate this potential, the study imagined increasing purchases and investments originating from the territory, with the same final expenditure, finding that the implementation of a complete industry-health system would bring the GDP share to 14,2% with an increase of 4,4 billion in GDP, with equal public and private health spending, without assuming a probable increase in spending and without considering export opportunities.

Not only, healthcare and its integrated system would achieve direct and indirect employment growth of 61 thousand equivalent work units, from 278 thousand to 339 thousand, with the same initial expenditure for care of 13,3 billion. There would also be an increase in taxes collected from 6,6 billion to 8,3 billion, attributable to the internal demand for care, with an increase in annual revenue of 1,7 billion, which justifies the share of public investment in the creation of the mixed network.

"The healthcare supply chain in Piedmont represents a concrete development priority for both citizens and businesses. UniCredit's support is focused on three priorities: better management of pharmaceutical logistics, investments in innovation and research in life sciences, and the development of public-private partnerships.He explains Paola Garibotti, Regional Manager North West of UniCredit.

Otherwise, the cost of not complying with innovative standards of healthcare logistics, lengthening of treatment periods, inadequacies, costs from redundancy and non-optimisation of transport and storage locations, based on studies conducted in other countries, can be conservatively estimated at 5% of total healthcare expenditure. Considering that Piedmont's healthcare expenditure is 8 billion euros, the potential cost of non-innovation could reach 400 million euros per year.

The event was also attended by Gianluca Ansalone, country head of public affairs Novartis Italia; Mariella Enoc, manager of non-profit healthcare facilities; Laura Morgagni, director of Fondazione Piemonte Innova; Enzo Pompilio D'Alicandro, vice president of the Chamber of Commerce of Turin; Luigi Vercellino, general director of the ASL of Alessandria; Michele Vietti, president of Finpiemonte, comparing their respective experiences in the sector.

Instead, they discussed innovations for the growth of the supply chain: Massimiliano Boggetti, president of Cluster Alisei; Ilaria Catalano, head of healthcare logistics at Poste Italiane; Fabrizio Grillo, president of Federated Innovation @MIND; Giulia Minnucci, molecular r&d senior director Europe at Diasorin; Giuseppe Savoia, director of real estate development and enhancement at Sistemi Urbani Fs; Massimo Scaccabarozzi, president of Menarini Biotech; Fabio Luppino, CEO of Plurima.