Mirandola on the hunt for young people to enter the biomedical sector with four Its courses and seven new hi-tech laboratories

It has just graduated 57 young people in the three two-year advanced training courses dedicated to Data Analysis, Automation 4.0 and Disposable Manufacturing, an all-time record in its first ten years of activity, but the Its Biomedical Centre in Mirandola is not content. The graduation ceremony just celebrated in the heart of the Modenese district - a European leader in disposable devices - was in fact an opportunity to present investments in new training proposals and super-specialised laboratories. The tools with which the territorial ecosystem is trying to respond to the growing demand for young digital and multilingual people from the multinationals established and the local supply chains.

"Thanks to almost EUR 6 million of Pnrr funds, we are activating a fourth Its course in Helthcare IoT of medical devices and equipping seven laboratories where our students will be able to practise acquiring familiarity with the latest generation technologies used today by companies in the sector,' emphasises Giuliana Gavioli, president of the Its Biomedical Foundation. 'And we are talking about two-year courses of excellence, totally free of charge, which guarantee a ministerial diploma of 5th level of higher technician with an employment rate consistent with the course of study that reaches 90%.

The challenge has now become that of finding young people interested in entering the sector, in order to overcome the wall of 100 new graduates every year at the Mirandola ITS Academy, which in these first ten years of activity has churned out 302 super biomedical technicians. The deadline for enrolment has been brought forward by the RNRP to 25 September, and the fear of not being able to fill the classes is there, even though the tour of presentations, open days and media promotion has begun. The Mirandola area is certainly not Milan in terms of attractiveness, 'but multinationals that export all over the world operate here, and our district is the one that has recorded the best performance in terms of exports in the first months of 2024, with a growth of 20%,' adds Gavioli. Not to mention that Italy's unfair payback regulation on biomedical devices - which the district's operators are trying to repeal with a ready-made bill - is increasingly moving companies' business across borders, stimulating the creation of global workplaces.

Mirandola offers young people not only the chance to specialise and find high-skill work, but also to start their own business, because behind the supply chain academy "there is a stable and open network, made up of the Mirandola Technopole, the Its, the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, and other universities with which we collaborate," explains Gavioli, also referring to the new degree course in Bioengineering (Mirandola becomes a university city: course in Bioengineering for Innovation - Il Sole 24 Ore) - as well as from the companies in the supply chain, from which system actions are triggered to accelerate business development and incubate new realities and start-ups".

The seven new laboratories, financed with EUR 2.5 million from the NRP (another EUR 3 million has been earmarked for tertiary technical training), will all be operational before the end of the year and will focus on telemedicine, augmented and virtual reality, use simulation with immersive reality, and production with 3D printers and 3D bioprinting (a feather in the district's cap, they are already working on printing artificial tissues and organs, such as skin, bones and lungs, with advanced experimentation on the retina). They will be coordinated by professors and researchers from UniMore, the Mirandola Technopole and professionals from the companies that are active partners of the Its Biomedical Foundation, from the big names BBraun, Medtronic, Mozart-Bellco, Eurosets, Fresenius Kabi to Elcam Medical, Sidam, Haemotronic, Encaplast, Qura, Sterigenics and HMC Group.