June 22, 2021 - After collapsing on the pitch during the Euro 2020 game between Denmark and Finland, HNS and St Catherine Specialty Hospital want to help Danish footballer Christian Eriksen. 

St Catherine Specialty Hospital Management Board president and Croatian Football Federation health commission president Dragan Primorac sent a letter to the Danish Football Federation president Jesper Moller and Secretary-General Jakob Jensen, urging them to have their national team member Christian Eriksen (29) perform a comprehensive genetic test in Croatia to determine the possible genetic basis of cardiac arrest, reports Index.hr.

The Denmark national team player shocked the world when he collapsed on the pitch in the 43rd minute of the match between Finland and Denmark on June 12. The doctors revived him on the pitch for ten minutes. Eriksen was transferred to the hospital, from where he later contacted his teammates, and they then decided to continue the match. He was then fitted with an ICD, a device that can restore normal heart function.

It is known that the Croatian Football Federation and the St Catherine Special Hospital, in cooperation with the American corporation Invitae, launched a project in June 2019 to prevent sudden cardiac death, which with a complete cardiac examination (12-channel electrocardiogram, heart ultrasound, ergometry, and 24-Holter) includes the most comprehensive analysis described in the literature genes associated with conditions that can lead to sudden cardiac death in athletes.

Eriksen's genetic testing would be conducted as part of the project "Development of a Comprehensive Model for the Prevention of Sudden Heart Death: Analysis of 294 Genes and Related Mutations Associated with Conditions That Can Lead to Athlete's Sudden Heart Death."

If, after genetic testing, the occurrence of a mutation in one of the genes associated with conditions that can lead to the sudden cardiac death of an athlete is determined, it will be necessary to test his children as well. Eriksen, meanwhile, is fitted with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) that can successfully detect the occurrence of arrhythmias in the future and restore a normal heart rhythm and save a person's life.

The first results related to the role of specific genetic markers as possible predictors of sudden cardiac death in athletes were conducted by scientists from the USA, Canada, Croatia, and Germany, led by Dr. Primorec, and recently published in the scientific journal Frontiers in Medicine.

The results of a study involving three generations of families of athletes who died of sudden cardiac death have been published, and the study has analyzed the largest number of genes associated so far with several inherited cardiac conditions leading to sudden cardiac death 294 genes.

Among the analyzed genes are those that lead to various disorders of the electrical activity of the heart, including hereditary disorders of cardiac ion channels, such as prolonged QT interval syndrome, Brugada syndrome, but also genes whose changes lead to structural changes in the heart, such as cardiomyopathies (most often hypertrophic cardiomyopathy), and several other conditions.

HNS President Davor Suker introduced FIFA leader Gianni Infantino and UEFA president Alexander Ceferin to the published, as it is now called, "Croatian model for the prevention of sudden cardiac death in athletes," which includes the analysis of the largest number of genes associated with sudden cardiac death, especially in players from risk groups. 

During the start of the project in June 2019, a member of the project team and one of the most prominent German cardiologists, prof. Dr. Johannes Brachmann stated that the latest scientific findings suggest that classical cardiac examination is not sufficient in the early detection of conditions that can lead to sudden cardiac death in athletes and that genetic screening in predisposed athletes plays a key role.

It was then particularly emphasized that extremely intense physical activity can increase the risk of sudden cardiac death in predisposed athletes. Following the Guidelines (Positions) of the Croatian Society for Human Genetics of the Croatian Medical Association, all persons identified through screening as persons at higher risk will be provided with information as part of genetic counseling during risk identification and after additional tests. This will be the basis for optimal treatment and, if necessary, exclusion from sports of high-risk athletes to reduce the incidence of sudden cardiac death.

Since the beginning of the project "Development of a comprehensive model for the prevention of sudden cardiac death: Analysis of 294 genes and associated mutations associated with conditions that can lead to sudden cardiac death of athletes", on two occasions, the Croatian Football Federation sent a letter to all First, Second and Third HNL clubs, First and Second HNLŽ clubs, and First and Second HNML clubs, urging all players from defined risk groups (athletes with a personal or family history of cardiovascular disease, athletes with a specific cardiovascular result after a clinical examination, athletes with previous episodes of weakness or excessive fatigue that are not in line with exertion, athletes with dizziness or unexplained loss of consciousness and chest pain, etc.) after standard cardiac treatments, and underwent genetic testing as part of the project.

At the end of the letter,  Dr. Primorac congratulated Denmark on advancing to the round of 16.

"It was tough for all of us to watch the recent scenes of Eriksen after he collapsed in the first half of the 2020 European Championship match between Denmark and Finland. The most important thing now is that he is well and that the medical team has done everything to stabilize his condition. However, the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the leading scientific journals, points out that in about 40% of cases of sudden cardiac death, the cause remains unknown. Therefore, I believe that genetics and other OMICS disciplines will play a key role in better understanding the mechanism occurrence and the prevention of these tragic events.

In our comprehensive model of sudden cardiac death prevention, in addition to standard cardiac tests, we placed special emphasis on the analysis of 294 genes associated with conditions that lead to sudden cardiac death. Therefore, as part of the project, we want to help colleagues from the Danish Football Association in searching for the real cause of cardiac arrest that happened to Eriksen, to optimize his treatment, but also to determine the possible existence of mutations associated with conditions that can lead to sudden cardiac death," concluded Dragan Primorac.

To follow the latest sports news in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

To learn more about sport in Croatia, CLICK HERE. 

January 23, 2020 - A Croatian group of scientists from the St. Catherine Special Hospital participated in the publication of yet another remarkable scientific paper, this time explaining the concept of pharmacogenomics testing based on the principles of artificial intelligence.

"Pharmacogenomics" is one of the world's leading scientific publications in the field of pharmacogenomics (PGx) and their latest issue included an article titled "Pharmacogenomics at the center of precision medicine: challenges and perspective in an era of Big Data".

The authors are a group of the Croatian and American scientists, led by Professor Dragan Primorac, who propose the model of the systematic introduction of PGx testing into clinical practice. Along with that, they propose the implementation of the concept into the health systems of various countries, using Artificial Intelligence (AI) models, as well as some sub-systems within the AI framework, such as so-called Machine Learning.

Through the specific algorithms analysing the data, the patients' data is compared with all the data already deposited in large databases (using the Big Data approach), with the goal of optimising diagnostic procedures, the prevention of disease on time, and personalised treatment. Unlike the typical model of machine learning where the algorithms are defined by certain parameters based on expert knowledge, the concept of AI primarily uses the neural networks, continually evaluating a large amount of data and processing it in a similar manner to human thinking.

Pharmacogenomics analyses a whole series of genes, or even the entire genome, and then studies the connections between the genetic predisposition of an individual and their reaction to a drug. It helps understand why some people respond to some medicines while others don't, why some people need to have the doses of their medicines adjusted to get the perfect therapeutic response, and it can even warn you if a patient won't respond to therapy at all or even when someone will experience toxic side effects.

The model proposed in the paper is based on the experiences by the St. Catherine Hospital and the PGx testing it has been performing in cooperation with OneOme American company (a spin-off company of the famous Minnesotan Mayo Clinic).

The testing uses the RightMed system and analyses 25 genes at the same time (CYP1A2, CYP2B6, CYP2C9, CYP2C19, the CYP2C cluster, CYP2D6, CYP3A4, CYP3A5, CYP4F2, COMT, DPYD, DRD2, GRIK4, HLA-A, HLA-B, HTR2A, HTR2C, IFNL4, NUDT15, OPRM1, SLC6A4, SLCO1B1, TPMT, UGT1A1, VKORC1), which are responsible for the synthesis of the enzymes important for the drug's metabolism (especially the genes of the enzymatic system of cytochrome P450), transport proteins, receptors, other proteins important for the functioning of drugs, as well as those from the HLA system, which is important for the reactions of oversensitivity to medicines.

The system allows for the prediction of the response of each patient for over 300 of the most frequently used medicines, and so the patients are given the possibility to find the one which will help them best. All of the algorithms used in the system related to the use of the genetic information and the selection of the drug and its dosage are following the Clinical Pharmacogenetics Implementation Consortium
(CPIC) guidelines.

The algorithm of the analysis of genes responsible for the drug metabolism of each patient will sort them into five categories of metabolizers: slow, intermediary, normal, fast or very fast. The paper also includes a very detailed SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat) analysis of the proposed strategy, which can lead to a significant new step in the development of modern medical sciences.

The importance of the introduction of PGx methods into routine clinical practice is best confirmed by the information recently published in the leading American medical sciences journal, JAMA, in which it was said that in the US, more than 2 million hospitalized patients have serious side-effects from the drugs they were given annually, and over 100.000 of them die. Some estimate that the number is even higher today. Today, side-effects from drugs constitute the fourth cause of mortality in all populations. In the US, the health system spends 136 billion dollars a year to mitigate the damage done by the side-effects of drugs. European data shows that between 7 and 13 percent of patients get admitted into hospitals because of the side-effects of drugs, and 30 to 50 percent of patients do not respond to therapy at all. 

Professor Dragan Primorac said that the "right therapy for the right patient at the right time" is the key phrase of personalized medicine, however that can't be achieved without an insight into the molecular status of the patient.

Our goal is to reduce the morbidity caused by the side-effects of drugs to the lowest possible level, as well as to integrate pharmacogenomics through the concept of AI with all the other diagnostic procedures into an integrated system which will lead to the optimisation of diagnostic and therapeutical procedures.

The proposed concept of the integration of PGx methods into clinical practice, developed by the scientists from the St. Catherine Special Hospital and the OneOme company, has attracted huge interest on the world's health market, and the first implementation of the model outside of Croatia is soon to start in German health institutions.

For more on the Croatian medical tourism story, check out the dedicated TCN section. 

March 1, 2019 - As Croatia looks to develop its medical tourism industry, TCN continues its look at the key health tourism providers. This week, St Catherine Specialty Hospital.

Several months ago, I was invited to a press conference at St Catherine Specialty Hospital. TCN gets invited to a lot of press conferences, but we rarely attend due to time and limited resources. But there was something a little different about this invitation, and as I was planning to be in Zagreb that day, I decided to attend. 

(Prof dr.sc. Dragan Primorac at the OneOme press conference in Zagreb)

I was blown away.

For two reasons. 

The first reason I was blown away was what was being announced.

Healthcare is not a topic I know a great deal about, but even I could see that the unveiling of the new OneOme RightMed pharmacogenetic test which had been developed in cooperation with Mayo Clinic in the States was a potential game-changer in global and personalised healthcare. 

I learned that the fourth-largest killer in the United States each year was due to adverse drug reaction (ADR), more than 100,000 people a year. The prescribing of drugs which have little or no effect also costs over $100 billion a year. A drug which works for one patient may not work for another, and slower metabolisms also differentiate the speed with which medicines work on patients. The policy of blanket prescribing for all is both costly, ineffective and deadly. If only there was a way to personalise the diagnosis of a patient's needs. 

Enter OneOme. The RightMed pharmacogenetic test does exactly that. After a simple swab OneOme processes the sample and generates the RightMed test report. Finally, you visit a clinic representative who helps you understand the test results. Depending on your genes, your body may break down a drug too slowly or too quickly. If you metabolise a drug too slowly, you may be exposed to too much of it, which may result in an adverse drug reaction (ADR). If you metabolise a drug too quickly, you may not get enough to have any effect at all. A OneOme RightMed test helps to identify this for your doctors.

A Mayo Clinic trial of 3,600 patients whose RightMed information was available to doctors led to a 30% reduction in hospitalisation of heart patients. 

The potential saving to national healthcare systems is mind-boggling. You can learn more about OneOme in this interview with Prof. dr. sc. Dragan Primorac of St Catherine Specialty Hospital.

The second reason I was blown away was that the first partner chosen to provide the OneOme RightMed test in Europe was St Catherine Specialty Hospital in Croatia.

Yes, tiny Croatia, at the forefront of cutting edge medical innovation. I was stunned. 

Stunned is an emotion I have encountered a lot since I discovered the emerging medical tourism story 18 months ago. I visited three of the country's top private healthcare providers (Bagatin Clinic and Svjetlost were the others) as part of my research, and this led to my first visit to the St Catherine Zagreb facility. What I found at all three facilities was a level of customer care that far exceeded the perception of healthcare in Croatia. You can read my first article of discovery - Health Tourism is Coming Home - Why Zagreb is the Next Big Medical Tourism destination.

A member of the Leading Hospitals of the World, the OneOme press release introduced St Catherine as follows:

St. Catherine is a university teaching hospital and the official hospital of the Croatian Olympic Committee and of the Croatian Football Federation. The Hospital is the first European recipient of U.S. Global Healthcare Accreditation and known for introducing the integrative concept of personalized medicine in clinical practice.

I was soon to learn that St Catherine Specialty Hospital is so much more than that, as the official St Catherine website explains:

St. Catherine Hospital is a proud member of the prestigious group "The Leading Hospitals of The World", while In June, 2015., The International Certification Association (ICERTIAS) announced that the St. Catherine Hospital won the top-Quality medal (QUDAL - QUality meDAL) along with award of St. Catherine Hospital being the best private hospital in the Republic of Croatia, which is all according to the customer’s/patient’s opinion and judgement. It is also worth mentioning how during the studies, the ICERTIAS was using CAWI – DEEPMA (Computer Assisted Web Interviewing – Deep Mind Awareness) methods in order to analyze and examine all the received data.

St. Catherine Specialty Hospital’s membership in the International ICERTIAS Customers’ Friend programme – “Because we care about our customers”, attests to the special care and attention that Specialty Hospital give to patients and their problems, as well their commitment towards developing long-term customer satisfaction from the very beginning – from the first phone call up to the final phase of treatment.

Nevertheless, the "Super-brands organization" based in Great Britain (since 1995), has proclaimed St. Catherine in July 2016, as one of the strongest and the most successful brands in that year, thus, along with that, St. Catherine won “Croatia Superbrands 2016 Award” regarding its quality, reliability and distinction.

On November 6th, 2015., Ministry of Science, Education and Sports of the Republic of Croatia announced that the St. Catherine Hospital become “Scientific Center of Excellence for the Personalized Medicine in the Republic of Croatia” as a part of Consortium that includes the top healthcare and scientific institutions in the country and such field.

In April 2017, St. Catherine was awarded the “Best Hospital Award” for the strong position at the national market and in international sector ratings, successful implementation of modern management technologies, staff excellence and the efficient marketing strategy. Mrs Jadranka Primorac, M.Sc., Board Member of St. Catherine Specialty Hospital was honoured as a “Manager of the Year” by the Europe Business Assembly, Oxford, UK.

In April 2017 St. Catherine hospital has won a major international medical tourism award for their efforts in attracting international patients to Croatia. St. Catherine Specialty Hospital was named “International specialist patient centre of the year" by medical travel publication the International Medical Travel Journal Medical Travel Awards 2017 at their annual awards ceremony, the IMTJ Medical Travel Awards 2017.

In May 2017, St. Catherine Specialty Hospital was selected among the top 10 European companies in the category of 'The Award for Customer Focus' at the European Bussines Awards, for its business success and excellence, innovation and ethics in business. St. Catherine Specialty Hospital has been selected among 34,000 businesses that have been involved in this prestigious competition. Also, St. Catherine Specialty Hospital has won the status of the "National Champion for the Republic of Croatia in The European Business Awards".

The main hospital is a short drive from Zagreb in the town of Zabok. I took my daughter there for treatment and was amazed at the size of it in gorgeous and spacious grounds. St Catherine treats 35,000 patients a year, and after years in the Croatian public healthcare system, it was a totally different experience altogether, both in the diagnosis and the customer care. 

Croatia has its poster child heroes in various sectors of society who can compete on the world stage in their fields, such as Mate Rimac and Luka Modric. Add St Catherine Specialty Hospital to that list in the field of medical tourism. 

To learn more about St Catherine Specialty Hospital, visit the official website. 

To learn more about the Croatian medical tourism story, follow the dedicated TCN page. 

October 25, 2018 - A new pharmacogenetic test called RightMed from OneOme has come to Europe, offering the possibility of eradicating the high number of deaths from Adverse Drug Reactions (ADR), as well as saving billions of dollars in the prescribing of drugs which have no effect. Co-founded by Mayo Clinic, the leading hospital in the United States, a European partnership was announced in Zagreb last week, with Leading Hospitals of the World member, St Catherine Speciality Hospital in Croatia the chosen European partner for the introduction of the OneOne RightMed test in Europe. After the press conference at St Catherine's, Professor dr. sc. Dragan Primorac kindly agreed to an interview with TCN to tell us more.  

1. Last week, St Catherine Specialty Hospital in Croatia announced a partnership with OneOme, co-founded by Mayo Clinic, to increase pharmacogenetic testing in Europe. Explain firstly what pharmacogenetic testing is, and why it is important?

Individualized (personalized) medicine can add tremendous value to health care. The United States Food and Drug Administration views personalized medicine as an innovative approach to disease prevention and treatment that takes into account differences in patients’ genes, environments and lifestyles. Pharmacogenetics is a critical component of personalized medicine. With the advances in molecular biology and genetics, pathogenesis of many diseases has been traced to variations in the genome. 

The ultimate goal of pharmacogenetics is to understand how genetic makeup determines drug action and adverse reactions. Most drugs are broken down (metabolized) by enzymes. In some cases, metabolism deactivates an active drug fully or partially. In other cases, metabolism activates an inactive (or less active) drug. Different genetic variants of a particular enzyme can metabolise a particular drug or group of drugs differently; hence, understanding the particular variant in the particular patient can directly affect the decision on the drug choice and dosage. To avoid drug-drug interactions, the decision on which drug to prescribe may also be influenced by other drugs taken. Understanding the genetic basis of patient’s metabolic differences (i.e., patient’s pharmacogenetics), clinicians can select the most effective drugs while keeping the likelihood of adverse reactions at the minimum. The likelihood of drug overdose can be decreased, as the dosage is based on the genetic constitution of the patient rather than on his/her body weight and age, as in the conventional approach. Pharmacogenetics will surely become part of standard considerations in the use of pharmaceuticals.  

2. Two interesting facts from the press conference for me were that Adverse Drug Reaction (ADR) was the fourth biggest killer in the United States and that about 50% of administered drugs have no effect, two statistics which are costly in terms of loss of life and money. Let’s fantasise - if the OneOme RightMed test was standard practice in the United States, what impact would that have in a reduction of ADR deaths and dollar savings annually?

The first article addressing your question was published in JAMA in 1998 estimated that in 1994 overall 2 216 000  hospitalised patients had serious ADRs and 106 000 had fatal Adverse Drug Reaction (ADRs), making these reactions between the fourth and sixth leading cause of death. However in a recent article published by Light it is estimated that in the United States, adverse drug reaction (ADRs) is the fourth leading cause of death, and it is estimated that prescription drugs are responsible for 2.74 million ADRs and 128,000 deaths annually. Some other publications emphasising that ADRs cost $136 billion yearly—more than the total costs of cardiovascular and diabetes care—and cause one out of five injuries or deaths per year to hospitalised patients.

3. This is very new technology. Can you give us a real-life case study where the PGx has been used to improve a patient’s health and change medication?

There are numerous of publications precisely describing how PGx could improve a patient’s health and how it could help in reducing ADR and loss of money. I will mention just a few studies: A Mayo Clinic study involving 3,600 subjects showed that  hospitalisation of heart patients was reduced by 30 percent when doctors were made aware of the pharmacogenetics data prior to treatment with warfarin. Another study has shown that the breast cancer therapy guided by a commercially available PGx test was able to achieve a cost savings of $2,256 per patient, as a result of the reduction in the use of chemotherapy. 

Mrazek and colleagues recently published that patients with treatment-resistant depression have been estimated to cost the United States close to $50 billion more per year than if those same patients were to respond to first-line antidepressants. The FDA-approved drug label for codeine states in a black box warning that respiratory depression and death have occurred in children who received codeine following a tonsillectomy and/or adenoidectomy and who had evidence of being CYP2D6 ultra-rapid metabolizers. The label also states that deaths have occurred in nursing infants who were exposed to high levels of morphine in breast milk because their mothers were CYP2D6 ultra-rapid metabolisers, etc…

4. Take us through the practical process. I make an appointment at your clinic to take the test. What does the test actually entail and what happens next? The RightMed comprehensive test, co-developed with Mayo Clinic, determines how the patient may respond to medications, based on patients' DNA. How does the RightMed test work? 

First you make an appointment at St. Catherine’s and after a short conversation with a clinical representative at St. Catherine Hospital  a physician orders the OneOme RightMed test. Then your sample is collected by using a buccal swab collection procedure. 

Immediately afterwards, OneOme processes your sample and generates your RightMed test report. Finally, you visit a clinical representative at St. Catherine Hospital who helps you understand the test results. Depending on your genes, your body may break down a drug too slowly or too quickly. If you metabolise a drug too slowly, you may be exposed to too much of it, which may result in an adverse drug reaction (ADR). If you metabolize a drug too quickly, you may not get enough to have any effect at all. A OneOme RightMed test helps to identify this for your doctors.

5. Our bodies are constantly changing. Is the RightMed test a 'snapshot' of the current situation, or something that is valid for a longer time and/or other conditions? In other words, is it something you would recommend repeating in a few years for people seeking medication again?

PGx testing using the RightMed platform can benefit everyone, as it provides life-long information about how an individual metabolises more than 350 medications. What we like about the RightMed platform is that test reports are automatically updated as clinical guidelines change or as new evidence emerges in the future. That being said, the RightMed test will be highly recommended for polypharmacy patients (those on >5 medications) as well as those taking medications for pain management. 

6. Coming from such a leading health source as Mayo Clinic, the OneOme product cannot be cheap. What does it cost, and what is included in that price?

Back in 2001, the first copy of the human genome was published sequencing a single human genome came with a $100 million price tag, making the cost of genome sequencing one of the biggest barriers to incorporate it into routine medical care. Than geneticists, physicians, agreed that we should achieve $1,000 as the magic number in order to make genetic tests affordable enough to be a part of routine health care. We believe, we achieve it and the cost of OneOme RightMed test is 4 900 kunas (approx $750).

7. The long-term goal must be to have the OneOme RightMed test as part of national health strategies. While the benefits financially are clear from the numbers mentioned above, getting countries to proactively use (and pay for) the service will be a challenge to get established. What is your strategy in this regard?

It’s only a matter of time before pharmacogenomic testing becomes standard of care so now is the time to consider how we will implement it: from educating our clinical teams, to integrating PGx information into electronic health records. There is mounting clinical evidence supporting the clinical utility of pharmacogenomic testing across multiple indications, so choose a platform that will provide clinical benefit to as many patients as possible. Most importantly, choose a PGx testing provider who has a credible clinical development team and a product that is rooted in sound clinical evidence. 

In order to help those leaders to understand a great benefit of pharmacogenetic, recently I was editing (together with Prof. Hoppner) a book entitled Pharmacogenetics in clinical practice where we underline how pharmacogenomics as a critical component of personalized medicine will help in optimal treatment that takes into account differences in patients genes, environments and lifestyles.

8. The RightMed test will be available in Europe initially in Croatia via your hospital, before expanding to Germany and Switzerland, according to the press conference. Can you tell us more about that?

St-Catherine Hospital sees more than 35,000 patients per year, so we wanted to implement a test that could be applied to a number of specialty areas, including pain, cardiology, psychiatry and cancer. The comprehensive nature of the RightMed panel was therefore also a critical factor in our decision. In addition, we chose to work with OneOme because of the scientific rigor which was applied to the development of the RightMed platform. Their PGx interpretation is supported by the highest level of clinical evidence, making their test the most clinically actionable one on the market. 9. Some people may be surprised that a Croatian hospital was chosen as the European partner for such a highly specialised medical initiative. St Catherine Speciality Hosptial is a member of the Leading Hospitals of the World, as well as the hospital for, among others, Croatia's World Cup heroes. For those international readers who have not come across your hospital, tell us about St Catherine Specialty Hospital, your long association with Mayo Clinic, and how this partnership came about. 

St. Catherine Hospital is a European center of excellence for advanced diagnostics, orthopedic procedures and spine surgery, pain management, sport medicine as well as in the implementation of innovative diagnostics methods and personalized treatment strategies. In addition, St. Catherine is the official medical institution of the Croatian Olympic Committee and of the Croatian Football Federation. Therefore, many of the top-level athletes from variety of sports have been either diagnosed or treated at the hospital, including: Garry Kasparov (former World Chess Champion), Marin Čilić (Winner of the US Open 2014), Aleksandr Viktorovich Khoroshilov (the first Russian male to win a World Cup race (Schladming, 2015) since 1981) Gordan Giriček (NBA player: Memphis Grizzlies, Orlando Magic, Utal Jazz), Bojan Bogdanović (NBA player: Brooklyn Nets), Ivica Kostelić (former World Cup alpine ski racer and two-time Olympic gold medalist),  Janica Kostelić (former World Cup alpine ski racer and four-time Olympic gold medalist), Blanka Vlašić (a high jump indoor World Champion), Niko Kranjčar (football player: Queens Park Rangers and Croatian National Soccer Team), Maria Clara Salgado Rufino (member of Brazilian Volleyball Team), Mathieu Carle (Canadian Ice Hockey player), Ivano Balić (one of the best handball players of all time.), Mirko Filipović (K-1 champion).Last but certainly not least, many football players have been either diagnosed or treated in our hospital as well, out of which some include: Burak Yilmaz (Beijing Guoan, China and The Turkey National Football Team), Mario Mandžukić (Juventus, Italy and The Croatian National Football Team), Luka Modrić (Real Madrid, Spain and The Croatian National Football Team), Ivan Rakitić (Barcelona, Spain and The Croatian National Football Team),  Ivica Olić (Wolfsburg, Germany and The Croatian National Football Team), Mateo Kovačić (Real Madrid, Spain and The Croatian National Football Team), Šime Vrsaljko (Atletico Madrid, Spain and The Croatian National Football Team), Stipe Pletikosa (Real Club Deportivo de La Coruña, and The Croatian National Football Team), Niko Kranjčar (Glasgow Rengers and The Croatian National Football Team), Andrej Kramarić (Hoffenheim 1899, Germany and The Croatian National Football Team), Dejan Lovren (Liverpool, England and The Croatian National Football Team), Alen Halilović (HSV and The Croatian National Football Team), Ibanez Luis Ezequiel (Trabzonspor, Turkey), Josip Pivarić (DInamo, Zagreb, Croatia and The Croatian National Football Team), Tin Jedvaj (Bayer 04 Leverkusen, Germany  and  The Croatian National Football Team), Marko Pjaca (Juventus, Italy and The Croatian National Football Team, Nikola Kalinić (Fiorentina, Italy and The Croatian National Football Team), Marcelo Brzović (Internacionale Milano, Italy and The Croatian National Football Team), Domagoj Vida (FC Dinamo Kyiv, Ukraine, and The Croatian National Football Team),  and dozens of others.

OneOme® RightMed test was co-developed with Mayo Clinic, with whom International Society for Applied Biological Sciences that I am in charge of and St.Catherine Hospital has had a long-standing relationship. St-Catherine Hospital is pioneering the implementation of the personalised medicine concept in clinical practice and our Center for Individualised and Preventative Medicine is designed to bring the latest and greatest innovations in translational medicine to our patients, from glycomics to pharmacogenomics and beyond. Pharmacogenomic testing is a critical addition to our program, as we know that we can optimize health outcomes for our patients by tailoring their medications to their unique genetic makeup. Our collaboration with OneOme resulted with the introduction of the OneOme® RightMed test in Europe and you are completely right, we will be expanding shortly to several EU member states. 

10. And finally, for readers who are interested to take the RightMed pharmacogenetic test, what are the next steps, and where can they take it in Europe currently? 

Currently, your readers can take OneOme® RightMed test at the St. Catherine’s Hospital in Zagreb.  However,  OneOme, co-founded by Mayo Clinic and exclusively licensed from Mayo Clinic, is working to deliver the most comprehensive, cost-effective pharmacogenomic testing and tools for all providers across the globe to use in everyday patient care. St. Catherine’s is partnering with OneOme fulfilling that mission. 

(Paul Owen, CEO of OneOme, at the Zagreb press conference)

11. Two successful companies on a unique mission: the introduction of a personalised medicine concept to clinical practice worldwide. A difficult and challenging task?

OneOme and St. Catherine are creating effective strategic partnership based on performance excellence, innovation and visionary leadership in health care. OneOme is the company with incredibly professional and dedicated people. OneOme was named one of the World’s 50 most innovative companies for 2018 by Fast Company.  St. Catherine Hospital is a teaching hospital of 4 universities and the official hospital of the Croatian Olympic Committee and of the Croatian Football Federation. The Hospital is a member of the prestigious The Leading Hospitals of The World family and a first European recipient of U.S. Global Healthcare Accreditation.  In addition, St. Catherine Hospital is recipient of many national and international awards including “Croatia Super-brands 2016/2017 Award”, “National Champion for Republic of Croatia in The European Business Awards”, “Ruban d’Honneur Award for Customer Focus” and by overall rating is listed among the top 10 European Companies in its category during 2016. We strongly believe that our reputation, values, dedication and vision are essential to make our mission success.

12. OneOme and St. Catherine’s relationship seems to be very unique: a brilliant model of translational medicine concept with the goal of implementing recent scientific findings in a clinical practice.

You are right: This is not a vendor-client relationship; OneOme and St-Catherine are true partners in this program. There is a mutual commitment on both sides to make a positive impact on St-Catherine Hospital’s patients, first and foremost. We intend to continue working closely with OneOme to bring about enhancements to the platform and truly fulfill the promise of pharmacogenomics.   Finally, OneOme and St. Catherine’s will present the results of collaboration during the “11th ISABS Conference on Forensic and. Anthropologic Genetics and Mayo Clinic Lectures in Individualized Medicine” to be held on June 17-22, 2019 in Split. More than 650 participants with 60 invited speakers (including 4 Nobel prize laureates) all together from 50 different countries will learn more about our collaboration as well as about our unique approach of implementing the concept of personalized medicine in clinical practice.

To learn more about the OneOme RightMed test, visit the St Catherine Specialty Hospital website.