Prix Galien - first time in Poland!

Prix Galien prize is awarded as a tribute to innovative solutions in the filed of medicinal products among the pharmaceutical and medicinal companies and is also a honorable mention of groundbreaking achievements and scientific discoveries. The contest has a multinational character and is carried on in 12 countries: France, Spain, Great Britain, Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Portugal, Switzerland, Italy, United States of America and in Canada. The international edition is held once in two years and it brings the most innovative global product out of the local winners.

The Prix Galien was created by a pharmacist named Roland Mehl in France in 1970. His aim was to promote significant advances in pharmaceutical and medicinal research. This field of research had remained largely unrecognized until the creation of the Prix Galien award.

'Rank of this award is comparable to the Noble Prize of pharmaceutical and medicinal research and so it is the evidence of perfection and advanced technology. Moreover, Prix Galien is a great opportunity for expressing gratitude to our scientists, clinicists and pharma industry companies, who make an extraodinary contribution to the fight against human diseases' ― said Ph.D. Tomasz Bykowski, secretary general of the Prix Galien Poland 2012 jury.

During this year's Polish edition, the awards were given in three main categories and one special. Main ones regarded: Innovative medicinal product, including medicinal product used in out-patient health care, hospital treatment and innovative vaccine, Researcher or Research Team, making a scientific achievement that could have a groundbreaking impact on diagnostics, treatment and/or prevention of diseases in humans and Innovative medicinal device. Innovative informatical solution for medicine was concerned as special category.

It was uncertain to the last moment what the jury's decision will be and who of the 13 nominated shall claim the prize. Outstanding representants of science ― the Prix Galien jury ― have been studying materials and opinions concerning contest applications for the last two months to be able to voice for 'the winner'. The chosing process for the special category was conducted simultaneously, so those two votings could occur on the same day, before the ceremony.

Innovative medicinal product used in out-patient health care category was won by Boehringer Ingelheim with their dabigatran etexilate. It is used in systemic thrombo-embolism complications prevention in adults. In the Innovative medicinal product used in hospital treatment category, award was given to the telaprewir drug, which increases chance to cure more patients with genotype 1 of HCV virus. Innovative vaccine prize was claimed by Pfizer for a 13-valent pneumococcal vaccine designed for adult and child use. Nałęcz Institute of Biocybernetics and Biomedical Engineering PAS won the second main category ― Researcher or Research Team, making a scientific achievement that could have a groundbreaking impact on diagnostics, treatment and/or prevention of diseases in humans ― with it's model of artificial cardiopulmonary patient. It allows testing of medicinal devices and training with the students.

Institute of Physiology and Pathology of Hearing was given a prize in the Innovative informatical solutions for medicine special category. They have created ― as the first institution in the world ― the tele-audiology network with 23 stations in Poland. That network was estabilished to organize telerehabilitation care, planned tele-diagnostic appointments and telefitting.

While the biggest global pharma companies competed in the field of innovative medical products, the competition between innovative research projects was fierce and the jury had a really tough choice. It is worth mentioning that only Polish companies were nominated in the Researcher or Research Team category. On the other hand, none of Polish representative were awarded in the 'innovative categories', which shows the actual level of Polish science and inventions.

'We have turned over a new leaf in pointing the innovation development direction in Poland. Medicinal products and pharma solutions awarded this afternoon are the positive role models. Giving prizes to those unique products and solutions, as well as seeing you all here, I know that our determination in organizing the Prix Galian Poland competition was a right decision' ― as Ph. d. Andrzej Bieniek summarized this year's Prix Galien Poland 2012.

Adam Klamra