OSPEDALE SAN RAFFAELE SRL

Their core work

Ospedale San Raffaele is a major Italian research hospital in Milan that combines clinical care with deep translational research in gene therapy, cell therapy, immunology, and neuroscience. They develop advanced therapeutic medicinal products (ATMPs) including CAR-T cell therapies and gene therapies for conditions ranging from severe combined immunodeficiency to multiple myeloma. Their research spans from fundamental immunology — particularly CD8+ T cell biology and liver immunopathology — to clinical applications in multiple sclerosis, diabetes, and cancer. As a private research hospital, they bridge the gap between laboratory discoveries and patient treatment, with strong capabilities in preclinical models, biomarker development, and clinical trial execution.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In the early H2020 period (2015–2018), San Raffaele focused heavily on foundational immunology — CD8+ T cell dynamics, liver immunopathology, hepatitis B — alongside early gene and cell therapy projects like CARAT and SCIDNET. They also served as a clinical data provider for multiple digital privacy and security projects. From 2019 onward, the focus shifted decisively toward genome/gene editing, hematopoietic stem cells, organoids, and personalised medicine, reflecting a move from understanding disease mechanisms to engineering therapeutic interventions. The recent appearance of keywords like "personalised nutrition," "breath analysis," and "human milk analysis" signals expansion into precision health beyond their traditional therapeutic strongholds.

San Raffaele is moving from disease understanding toward engineered therapies — genome editing, organoids, and personalised medicine — making them an increasingly valuable partner for translational projects that need clinical infrastructure and advanced therapy manufacturing expertise.

How they like to work

San Raffaele operates as both a project leader and a versatile partner: they coordinated 28 of 77 projects (36%), mostly MSCA individual fellowships and ERC grants that reflect their role as a host institution for top researchers. As a participant in larger consortia, they contribute clinical expertise and patient access to multi-partner projects (518 unique partners across 33 countries). Their 13 third-party participations — predominantly in ICT/security projects — show they are frequently called upon to provide real-world clinical use cases and health data environments for technology validation.

With 518 unique consortium partners across 33 countries, San Raffaele has one of the broadest collaboration networks among Italian biomedical institutions. Their partnerships span from academic medical centers across Europe to technology companies in digital health and data security.

What sets them apart

San Raffaele combines the research depth of a university with the clinical infrastructure of a major hospital, all under a private structure that enables faster decision-making than public institutions. Their rare dual strength in both fundamental immunology (ERC-level basic research) and advanced therapy development (CAR-T, gene therapy manufacturing, clinical trials) means they can take a discovery from bench to bedside within a single organization. For consortium builders, they offer what few partners can: patient cohorts, GMP-grade cell manufacturing, regulatory experience with ATMPs, and world-class immunology expertise — all in one entity.

Highlights from their portfolio

• FATE
  Largest single grant (EUR 2.39M ERC) — a flagship project on liver CD8+ T cell biology coordinated by OSR, demonstrating their fundamental immunology leadership.
• NeuroTRACK
  EUR 1.5M coordinated project on predicting neurodegeneration spread across brain networks — shows their computational neuroscience capability beyond traditional wet-lab work.
• CARAMBA
  Major CAR-T therapy project using Sleeping Beauty gene transfer for multiple myeloma — represents their positioning at the frontier of engineered cell therapies moving toward clinical application.