New CEO in Place at Medicen Paris Region

Medicen Paris Region, Europe’s leading health cluster, has appointed Jessica Leygues as CEO, with approval from the board of directors. She starts her new role at a particularly complex time due to the COVID-19 crisis, which calls for the cluster’s priorities to be reassessed. She will be responsible for implementing crisis exit strategies for cluster members and the health sector.

“We are proud to welcome Jessica to Medicen. Her expertise and character match the challenges that lie before us,” said Christian Lajoux, president of Medicen Paris Region. “The transition management team has been in place for several weeks and has dealt with the damage caused by the pandemic with great professionalism. In the context of other healthcare clusters, we have immediately responded to the demands for cooperation from the Ile-de-France region, the Directorate General for Enterprise (DGE), government agencies and healthcare facilities.”

Medicen’s solid foundation alongside the expertise of its employees on the ecosystem have helped to rapidly set up a highly praised COVID-19 toolkit (FR). For a number of weeks, the cluster has been focusing on medtech companies, particularly those developing diagnostic and digital medical devices.

“I am delighted to join Medicen at a key point in time, when the cluster’s priorities need to be reassessed as required after the COVID-19 pandemic. Close dialogue must be encouraged with teams, governance and all stakeholders within the Ile-de-France region,” said Leygues. “We will need to initiate concrete reindustrialization projects to aid growth and rebuild national sovereignty for the healthcare industry. In particular, we will support micro businesses and SMEs through a groundbreaking, innovative dynamic for healthcare priorities and as part of an open approach to European ecosystems.”

Medicen is aware of the special role of a healthcare cluster as well as its network within the management and exit strategy of the COVID-19 crisis with the need to implement economic initiatives based on research and clinical development. This will be achieved by its strong commitment toward cooperation and a cross-sectoral approach, emphasizing that its identity will always be expressed in terms of industrialization and national sovereignty through a European and international approach.

Leygues, a graduate in engineering from the Paris Institute of Technology for Life, Food and Environmental Sciences (AgroParisTech), started her career at the Alcimed consulting firm. She spent eight years developing new healthcare markets (biotech/medtech) for entrepreneurs, startups, SMEs and large corporations as well as for the public and semi-public innovation sector, including the French Ministry of Research, research institutes, competitiveness clusters and knowledge transfer centers. Strongly committed to optimization initiatives for healthcare systems, Leygues then joined the pharmaceutical company Celgene, where she was responsible for an innovative partnership hub aimed at developing the healthcare value model. Leygues also set up and launched the Celgene ‘Innovation Lab’ to stimulate creativity, serendipity and collaborative work. – MPO