Munich, May 2025 – Nexuswelt, the Munich-based digital marketing and communication agency, is actively supporting the groundbreaking SHIELD project, which launched in May 2025 to transform pancreatic cancer detection across Europe. The company’s participation underscores its growing expertise in dissemination and commercialization of innovative European healthcare initiatives.
Revolutionary Cancer Detection Initiative
The SHIELD project (Comprehensive Surveillance of High-risk Individuals and Health Integration for Early detection of Pancreatic cancer utilising innovative multiplex immunoassays) represents a collaborative effort of 26 partners across 13 European countries, funded by Horizon Europe. This consortium is focused on addressing the devastating challenge of pancreatic cancer mortality through the development and implementation of innovative early detection strategies.
Pancreatic cancer remains a devastating disease, with a mortality rate of over 90%, due to late-stage diagnosis and limited treatment options. In Europe, pancreatic cancer is the third leading cause of cancer death, claiming 132,134 lives in 2020 alone.
Cyprus Connection and Project Kickoff
The SHIELD consortium includes partners from Sweden, Cyprus, and Italy, with Cyprus’s University of Nicosia Medical School serving as a key partner. The May 2025 kickoff meeting brought together international partners to launch this ambitious four-year initiative that could transform cancer care across Europe.
Professor Roland Andersson, the project’s clinical coordinator and a globally recognized pancreatic cancer expert, emphasized the project’s ambitious but achievable goals: “Through systematic early discovery in high-risk individuals, we aim to reduce late-stage diagnoses and elevate the five-year survival rate from under 10% to 30% by 2035 within this group.”
Nexuswelt’s Strategic Role
Nexuswelt’s involvement in supporting the SHIELD project leverages the company’s specialized expertise in two critical areas that determine healthcare innovation success: strategic dissemination and effective commercialization pathways.
Advancing Medical Innovation Communication
Nexuswelt’s approach to dissemination emphasizes robust strategies and seamless systems to ensure timely information sharing among stakeholders, fostering transparency, collaboration, and alignment of goals. For a complex medical research project like SHIELD, effective communication is crucial to:
- Multi-stakeholder Coordination: Managing communication between 26 partners across 13 European countries
- Clinical Community Engagement: Ensuring healthcare professionals understand the potential of new diagnostic technologies
- Patient Advocacy: Communicating hope and scientific progress to high-risk patient populations
- Regulatory Pathway Navigation: Supporting clear communication with health authorities for approval processes
Commercialization Excellence
As a leading B2B digital marketing company, Nexuswelt implements budget-smart strategies that aim not just for return on investment but aspire for return on innovation, redefining industry standards for success. The company’s commercialization approach is particularly valuable for SHIELD’s innovative blood test technology.
The cornerstone of the project is the clinical validation of an innovative blood test that has demonstrated promising initial results, achieving an overall sensitivity of 91% and specificity of 96%.
Transformative Healthcare Impact
SHIELD’s comprehensive strategy represents a paradigm shift in cancer care:
- Systematic identification of high-risk individuals based on genetic testing and comprehensive family history assessment
- Pilot an early detection programme across 7 EU countries
- Integrate low-cost yearly blood tests into local cancer screening programs
The consortium’s partner Protavio will first scale the manufacture of a novel in vitro diagnostic (IVD) it has developed. The blood test is designed to identify biomarkers in blood samples that may indicate early pancreatic cancer.
The European Cancer Mission Context
The SHIELD project aligns perfectly with Europe’s broader cancer mission objectives. Currently, over half of all pancreatic cancer cases are diagnosed at an advanced, metastatic and inoperable stage, making early detection initiatives like SHIELD critically important for public health.
Cancer screening administrative bodies covering the regional areas of Slovenia and Greece, and the Institute of Clinical Medicine in Lithuania, have already pledged their commitment to the SHIELD program.
Looking Toward 2035
The SHIELD project timeline extends through 2029, with ambitious goals for implementation across European healthcare systems. Nexuswelt’s support in dissemination and commercialization activities will be crucial for achieving the project’s ultimate objective: making early pancreatic cancer detection routine and accessible for high-risk populations across Europe.
Founded by Anna Lackner and based in Munich with representative offices across Europe, the Middle East, and North America, Nexuswelt brings international expertise to European innovation ecosystems. The company’s commitment to supporting SHIELD demonstrates the critical role that specialized communication and marketing expertise plays in translating scientific breakthroughs into real-world healthcare solutions.
As Izidor Mlakar, Coordinator of SHIELD, emphasized: “This powerful multidisciplinary collaboration gathers together leading clinician-scientists, technical innovators, and biological scientists. By consolidating our differing expertise, we are in the position to contribute significantly and positively to the treatment outcome for pancreatic cancer.”
The success of SHIELD could serve as a model for future European cancer detection initiatives, demonstrating how strategic communication and commercialization support can accelerate the path from laboratory discovery to patient care.
