The BRIGHT project, led by the University of Tartu and the health technology company Antegenes, has been awarded second place at the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) Awards, recognising it as one of Europe’s most outstanding healthcare innovations. The project resulted in the creation of a personalised breast cancer prevention and screening service.
The EIT Awards are the highest recognition of innovation within the EIT network, shining a spotlight on solutions with the potential to make widespread impact across multiple economic and societal sectors. The Innovation Team Award celebrates teams that connect research, education and entrepreneurship, and successfully develop services or technologies with clear evidence-based value and real-world applicability. In the BRIGHT project, the jury particularly highlighted the strong clinical implementation potential and significant influence the innovation could have on the future of cancer prevention in Europe.
While the University of Tartu was the project’s lead partner, its central focus was the clinical implementation of Antegenes’ polygenic breast cancer risk score test, AnteBC, into healthcare practice. The project developed a service model based on genetic risk assessment, which was evaluated through clinical studies in three countries – Estonia, Portugal and Sweden. These studies assessed clinical utility, cost-effectiveness and suitability within different healthcare systems.
Professor of Medical Genetics Neeme Tõnisson, the project lead, emphasised that a key priority of the innovation was expanding prevention efforts to younger women. “Our goal was to find a way to extend screening to women before they reach the usual screening age 50, while avoiding overdiagnosis and maintaining a balance between benefits and costs. Risk-based screening is the most effective solution. By identifying women at elevated risk earlier, we can offer them screening at a younger age than current guidelines recommend,” Tõnisson explained.
Antegenes CEO and oncologist Dr Peeter Padrik noted that the recognition signals a new standard in breast cancer prevention. “According to the EIT Awards jury, the BRIGHT innovation has essentially created a new standard for breast cancer prevention. Next-generation screening must reflect individual risk so that cancer is detected early, while also supporting health behaviour to reduce the likelihood of disease. Importantly, we have built a service that is convenient for patients – telemedicine and at-home testing make participation possible without visiting a clinic,” said Padrik.
Personalised breast cancer prevention combines polygenic risk testing (AnteBC test), evaluation of family history of cancer, and when necessary, analysis for high-risk genetic variants. Based on these factors, each woman receives a tailored prevention plan with recommendations when and how screening should be carried out. Findings from the BRIGHT project demonstrate that 15 breast cancer deaths can be prevented cost-effectively for every 10,000 women enrolled in personalised prevention.
Project partners represented several European countries: the University of Tartu, Antegenes, Tartu University Hospital and the Estonian Health Insurance Fund from Estonia, the Uppsala Region and Uppsala University Hospital from Sweden, North Lisbon University Hospital from Portugal, IESE Business School from Spain, and GE HealthCare from Hungary.
The service is already in use in the private healthcare sector in Estonia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Lithuania and Bulgaria, and is also being implemented in Portugal.
Read more from the EIT news article.
