The Catalonia 2022 working group has submitted the Reset document to the Government with 91 actions to help reactivate Catalonia and solve structural issues that the health crisis caused by COVID-19 has brought to light or aggravated.

The suggested actions have been divided into three areas and target both the Government and other public and private entities in Catalonia:

Catalonia 2022 working group has engaged in dialogue with more than 400 organisations from all spheres of society ...

Abzu, a startup founded simultaneously in Barcelona and Copenhagen in 2018, has closed a €6-million round of investment. Participants included international venture capital funds from the Nordic countries like Seed Capital, Inventure and PreSeed Ventures, as well as several business angels. 

Abzu offers an artificial intelligence platform that allows users to make precise predictions and find mathematical solutions to complex problems, which facilitates decision-making for researchers and speeds up clinical studies and drug development.

Elizabeth Gil-Roldán, head of Business Development at Abzu in Barcelona, explains that this funding will go towards “strengthening the development team for the technology ...

PHOTOS

The first edition of the CataloniaBio & HealthTech BIOMED ScaleUP programme finished on 27 May with an in-person session, taking all COVID-19 precautions, where the 10 participating companies shared what they had learned after 36 hours of corporate growth training and personalised guidance over 4 months.

Company representatives, mainly CEOs and business development directors, gave BIOMED ScaleUP an excellent for its quality and usefulness for developing the company’s growth project. 

They all agreed that the training sessions are useful for learning to grow in an organised manner, implementing specific management tools, avoiding common mistakes and being aware ...

LIM Global, a company with over 20 years of experience in human resources and recruitment for the biomedicine and health sector, has updated its brand and website in order to convey its experience, international vision, team and new areas of activity in this increasingly digital world.

Over the years, LIM Global has recruited roughly 800 C-Level professionals and middle-managers for pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical devices, in vitro diagnostics and digital health startups and companies.

Member of CataloniaBio & HealthTech, LIM Global is currently present in 60 countries with over 400 consultants. 

Visit the new website: https://limglobal.com/

Grifols is taking another step forward in Alzheimer research. The Catalan biotech group, a CataloniaBio & HealthTech member, and Ace Alzheimer Center are opening the first Ambar Center in Barcelona to collect data from standard clinical practice in Alzheimer.

The Ambar Center will be located at the Ace facility and managed by its medical professionals.

Grifols’ Ambar programme is based on daily plasma exchange with albumin. The procedure has been proven to delay cognitive and functional progression in mild-to-moderate Alzheimer patients in a Phase IIB/III clinical trial.

“The goal is to get data to complement the results of the ...

The prestigious journal Oncotarget has published a study conducted by the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO), Takeda, Anaxomics Biotech and the Pompeu Fabra University Research Group on Structural Bioinformatics that compares the mechanisms of action of brigatinib and alectinib to first-line drugs for lung-cancer patients with ALK gene rearrangement.

The study was carried out with Anaxomics TPMS (Therapeutic Performance Mapping System) technology based on systems biology and artificial intelligence. TPMS can be used in different phases of drug development and in this study was used to simulate patients with ALK+ lung cancer treated with the drugs above.

Enric Carcereny of ...

MJN-neuro has opened a €1-million crowdequity round through the Capital Cell platform to finance the marketing plan for the new mjn-SERAS device, the first wearable device that is able to predict the likelihood of suffering an epileptic seizure.

MJN-neuro is one of the 10 companies selected to participate in the BIOMED ScaleUP corporate growth programme run by CataloniaBio & HealthTech.

MJN-neuro has received several international recognitions since its creation in 2014, including the Epilepsy Foundation in the United States, which considers it to be one of the most promising startups offering products to improve the quality of life of ...

CataloniaBio & HealthTech presented its new Sustainability Workgroup yesterday, which will encourage companies in Catalonia’s biomedicine and health sector to be on the cutting-edge of sustainable development (economic, social and environmental) and to help have a positive effect on society.

The session included some twenty CEOs, CFOs, COOs and directors of Sustainability, Business Development, Communication, Sales and Marketing at CataloniaBio & HealthTech member companies. 

The WG will be a forum for debate and work where participants can discover and share trends, news, regulations and good practices on sustainability that affect the sector, seek out synergies among companies and promote ...

Ysios Capital, a CataloniaBio & HealthTech member, has closed its third fund Ysios BioFund III at 216 million euros.

The venture capital firm specialised in the biotechnology sector will invest in 15 start-ups and development-stage companies in Europe and the US. The total investment size per company will typically be of up to €20 million.

More than 60% of the portfolio has already been constructed, with eight investments made in the last 12 months: Ona Therapeutics (oncology), SpliceBio (gene therapy), VarmX (blood clotting), Lava Therapeutics (oncology), SparingVision (gene therapy), Synendos (neuropsychiatry), Adcendo (oncology) and Cytoki (inflammation).

After 13 years of ...

Aelix Therapeutics, a CataloniaBio & HealthTech member that Ysios Capital holds a stake in, has named Melanie Rolli its new CEO, taking over for José Luis Cabero.

This change comes after announcing, this past March, the positive results of the Phase I/II clinical trial on its HIV vaccine, which will help support future development of therapeutic strategies to control the disease without having to turn to ongoing antiretroviral therapy.

Melanie Rolli has a PhD in Pharmacology from Heidelberg University (Germany). From 2017 to 2021, she was CEO of Piqur Therapeutics AG in Basel (Switzerland). Previously, she spent 14 years ...

Ambit BST, an IT services company and CataloniaBio & HealthTech member, is consolidating its range of training courses with the launch of the Health Tech Institute.

Ambit BST is expanding its portfolio of ongoing training courses on new standards and digital transformation for professionals working in R&D, quality, regulatory, clinical, validation, production, IT and distribution areas of companies in the biomedicine and health sector. CataloniaBio & HealthTech members have special discounts on most of the courses (available on a regular basis through the Agenda on this website).

Ambit BST merged with CSV Experts at the beginning of 2020 and brings ...

Horizon Europe, the European Union’s framework programme for investment in research and innovation for 2021-2027, has kicked off after being published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJ) on 12 May 2021.

Horizon Europe has a total budget of €95.5 billion, 30% more than its predecessor Horizon 2020.

The new programme has three main pillars: 

Peptomyc, a spin-off of the Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) and the Catalan Institute of Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) and CataloniaBio & HealthTech member, has kicked off its Phase I/IIa clinical trial on the first Myc inhibitor. Myc is a gene involved in the development of most human cancers.

On 4 May, the first patient was treated with this therapy at Vall d'Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona under the supervision of Dr Elena Garralda, director of the Research Unit for Molecular Therapy of Cancer (UITM) and principal investigator of VHIO’s Early Clinical Drug Development Group.

The objective ...

The Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation has presented its part of the European Union's Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan for a total of €3.38 billion distributed between 2021 and 2023.

These resources represent a 60% increase in the Ministry's budget compared to 2020 and are structured in nine investment blocks:

The University of Barcelona (UB) becomes a shareholder of Reveal Genomics, a spin-off of the Hospital Clínic Barcelona and the Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO), which develops precision diagnostic tests in oncology based on different genomic data.

Initially, the company focused on improving the diagnosis of breast cancer.

Reveal Genomics was founded in 2020 and is led by Aleix Prat, head of the Medical Oncology Service at Hospital Clínic, together with Ana Vivancos from the VHIO, Charles M. Perou and Joel S. Parker, from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (USA) and Patricia Villagrasa, CEO of the biotech.

This ...

Predictheon, a spin-off of the Hospital Clínic Barcelona, the University of Navarra and the University of San Buenaventura Cali, has closed its first investment round of €840,000 led by the University of Navarra I+D+I Technology Transfer Fund, under the management of Clave venture capital firm. 

The transaction has been coordinated by the strategic and corporate finance consultancy firm, Inveniam Group. 

Predictheon develops software-based monitoring solutions, through artificial intelligence techniques such as machine learning and deep learning, for the prediction of clinically relevant real-time patient metrics and outcomes in different areas of anesthesia and perioperative care ...

Ability Pharma, a CataloniaBio & HealthTech member, announces the inclusion of the first patients with advanced pancreatic cancer in a Phase IIb clinical trial with ABTL0812.

The study will evaluate the efficacy and safety of ABTL0812 in combination with Folfirinox in 150 patients as first-line therapy. The clinical trial has started simultaneously at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center (USA) and at the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO) in Barcelona. Dr Davendra Sohal and Dr Teresa Macarulla are principal investigators, respectively. 

In total, the international study will include sixteen sites: four in the USA, six in Spain, three ...

Sequentia Biotech, a CataloniaBio & HealthTech member, and NextBiomics, a University of Naples Federico II spin-off, announced the filing of a patent application for a bacterial vaccine against COVID-19.

The NextBiomics vaccine is similar to others authorised (AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Pfizer and Reithera) in that it stimulates an immune response against the Spike-shaped protein that the coronavirus uses to infect cells, but its difference lies in usinga probiotic bacterium as a vector. 

"The evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic indicates that citizens will have to continue to undergo the recall vaccination. The strength of our approach with oral ...

Asabys Partners becomes the first venture capital firm specialised in the health sector to obtain the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) management system accreditation in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) from United Nations.

Asabys has carried out this process together with consulting firm Planet Fair Play and has also undergone an audit and certification by Bureau Veritas.

The Barcelona-based management company founded by Josep Lluís Sanfeliu and Clara Campàs has been active and impacting the sector for almost three years now. From the outset, they have always considered sustainability as a fundamental pillar of their strategic objectives and they ...

Gebro Pharma, a pharmaceutical company and CataloniaBio & HealthTech member, has appointed Ricard Castellet as the company's Digital Transformation Officer in Spain. 

This new position in the company is part of the board of Commercial Operations led by Gustavo Pérez which aims to bring digital technology to all areas, especially in products and services for patients and the public health system. 

Gebro Pharma specialises in solutions for pain, rheumatology, urology, dermatology and the respiratory system.

Castellet graduated in Sociology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), and has more than 20 years of experience in launching and consolidating ...