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MEDIA & NEWS / Ricerca / Giuliani and the A. Gemelli University Hospital in Rome together to promote personalized Nutritional Therapy.
Giuliani and the A. Gemelli University Hospital in Rome together to promote personalized Nutritional Therapy.
Giuliani SpA, the historic Italian pharmaceutical company founded in 1889, enters into a partnership with Gemelli Health System (GHS).
03
Jun. 2020
Rome, June 3, 2020 – Giuliani SpA, the historic Italian pharmaceutical company founded in 1889, has entered into a partnership with Gemelli Health System (GHS), a company controlled by the Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli IRCCS, established in 2018 and focused on the design and development of Foods for Special Medical Purposes (FSMPs), as well as complex dietary supplements and medical devices.
The agreement предусматривает an equal 50/50 shareholding structure and carries particular significance in light of the Covid-19 emergency our country is facing, highlighting how the union of highly complementary expertise such as that of Gemelli and Giuliani can represent an important contribution to the healthcare sector.
“The Gemelli Health System project represents one of the key issues in modern human health: nutrition,” said Giovanni Raimondi, President of the Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli IRCCS. “In practical terms, this means moving beyond the concept of dietary supplementation in favor of nutrient blends specifically designed and developed for individual needs and conditions of deficiency or increased nutritional demand.”
Giammaria Giuliani, member of the Board of Directors of Giuliani SpA, commented: “We are very pleased to invest in the expertise of Gemelli Health System and in what the Gemelli Foundation represents from a scientific standpoint. We have always supported innovative projects with a strong research component, an aspect we considered highly valuable in the GHS proposal.”
Gaetano Colabucci, newly appointed CEO of Gemelli Health System, added: “We are confident that the combination of our expertise will represent an important milestone in the advancement of Nutritional Therapy. Thanks to Giuliani’s contribution in terms of managerial and organizational experience and know-how, patients, families, doctors, pharmacists, and caregivers will receive comprehensive information on the new FSMPs, specifically designed both for prevention and as support for treatments.”
“Starting from the concept of personalized therapy tailored to individual needs,” stated Enzo Lucherini, appointed Chairman of the company and previously General Manager of Gemelli Health System, “and developed by combining genetic data with disease manifestations for each individual, the goal is to achieve more effective tailor-made treatments: this is Precision Medicine, which has always been one of Gemelli’s objectives. Today, our research into macro- and micronutrient blends aims to achieve a similar result: Precision Nutrition. We began with Rare Diseases to extend the field of application to a wide range of nutritional fragility conditions.”
Leading the Scientific Direction in the new GHS structure is Professor Antonio Gasbarrini (Director of the Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences at Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli IRCCS), who reinforced the concept of Precision Nutrition: “We know that in medicine there is one fundamental driver of health, and that is nutrition. We know that what enters our digestive system is metabolized, reanalyzed, reassembled, and distributed throughout the body. Therefore, our intestine — and particularly this ‘new’ organ called the microbiota that lives within it — plays a fundamental role both in strengthening the immune system and enabling nutrient absorption. A truly targeted formulation of micro- and macronutrients,” Gasbarrini explained, “is able to address the nutritional deficiencies often found in people with rare diseases. But it is also an important element for a broad range of diseases and specific conditions for which we are designing dedicated formulations.”
Foods for Special Medical Purposes (FSMPs)
According to the definition provided by the Italian Ministry of Health, Foods for Special Medical Purposes are “products intended for the dietary management of individuals affected by disorders, diseases, or medical conditions that result in nutritional vulnerability, meaning the impossibility or severe difficulty of meeting nutritional needs through the consumption of ordinary foods, including dietary supplements.”
More specifically, EU Regulation 609/2013 defines foods for special medical purposes as a “food product specially processed or formulated for the dietary management of patients, including infants, to be used under medical supervision; intended for the exclusive or partial feeding of patients with limited, impaired, or disturbed capacity to take, digest, absorb, metabolize, or excrete ordinary food or certain nutrients (…), or with other medically determined nutritional requirements whose dietary management cannot be achieved solely through modification of the normal diet.”
Gemelli Health System: “care beyond care”
Gemelli Health System studies and develops nutritional treatments for specific categories of patients experiencing nutritional fragility. These are conditions in which the integrated approach between pharmacological therapy and targeted formulations of macro- and micronutrients can contribute to a faster and more complete recovery of the patient’s health condition or — where this is not possible — help stabilize it.
Gemelli Health System began its activities with targeted nutritional supplementation in the area of Syndromic Obesity, particularly in children, a condition associated with several Rare Diseases such as Bardet-Biedl syndrome, WAGR syndrome, Beckwith-Wiedemann syndrome, Cohen syndrome, Fragile X syndrome, Smith-Magenis syndrome, Down syndrome, Rubinstein-Taybi syndrome, and Prader-Willi syndrome. The formulation Gemelli Health Obesità Sindromica® was developed as a meal replacement in individual 35 g sachets containing a gelling mixture that provides approximately 125 kcal per serving. Its carbohydrate content is supplied by maltodextrins with low dextrose equivalence, resulting in slower metabolism and avoiding glycemic spikes.
Subsequently, at the beginning of the same year, Gemelli Health MICI/IBD® was introduced, a food for special medical purposes specifically formulated for the dietary treatment of patients affected by acute and chronic inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) and/or malabsorption syndromes. Its composition includes whey proteins, maltodextrins, flaxseed oil, EPA and DHA (from microencapsulated fish oil), vitamins, minerals, a blend of anthocyanins, proanthocyanidins, phenolic compounds and ellagic acid (specifically selected from red fruit extracts), highly bioavailable curcuminoids, and inulin. The formulation is gluten-free.