Dear members,

I’m writing you today on behalf of the whole CataloniaBio & HealthTech board to thank you, in these difficult times, for your solidarity and capacity to respond in order to ensure continued supply of essential healthcare products, participate in research into Covid-19 treatments and vaccines, innovate to cover the lack of equipment in hospitals, advise and invest so start-ups and companies can keep working towards their mission. 

I took the helm of CataloniaBioHT just a few weeks ago, eager to continue boosting the value that we contribute to the health and life sciences ecosystem in Catalonia ...

Banco Sabadell is launching the third edition of BStartup Health call for proposals to support three early stage start-ups in the healthcare sector with an investment of €100,000 and strategic mentoring. The deadline for applications is 20 May 2020.

The projects will be evaluated based on their potential for growth and scalable, innovative business models.

The scientific committee is made up of Clara Campàs, founding partner at Asabys; Carlos Gallardo, CEO of CG Health and Almirall board member; Damià Tormo, partner of Columbus Venture Partners and CEO of Artax Biofarma; and Montserrat Vendrell, partner at Alta Life Science. Genesis ...

Oryzon Genomics, a CataloniaBio & HealthTech member, has received approval from the Spanish Drug Agency (AEMPS) under certain urgency provisions to conduct a Phase II clinical trial with vafidemstat in seriously ill Covid-19 patients.

The study ESCAPE is an open-label, randomized and double-arm trial to assess the efficacy and tolerability of vafidemstat in combination with standard of care treatment, to prevent progression to Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). 

Initially, it is planned to include 20 patients in each arm of the trial at Hospital Vall d'Hebron and Hospital del Mar, both in Barcelona. More centers can be added if ...

Capital Cell, Big Ban Angels and BioHub Valencia are launching a call to invest in business projects to fight Covid-19. The total investment will be up to €2 million in 3-5 projects. The deadline for applications is 3 May 2020.

“They will be investments with social impact, with good potential for return on investment and shifting from an economic model based on growth to one focused on care,” explains Daniel Oliver, CEO of Capital Cell, a crowdequity platform and CataloniaBio & HealthTech member.

The initiative is geared toward projects that help improve diagnosis and treatment of patients, focus on ...

Amgen, a CataloniaBio & HealthTech member, and Adaptative Biotechnologies announced a collaboration aimed at helping address the Covid-19 pandemic. The two companies will pool their expertise to discover and develop fully human neutralising antibodies targeting SARS-CoV-2 to potentially prevent or treat Covid-19. 

"Our strong history of collaboration with Adaptive gives us the ability to immediately mobilise our combined resources to help address the urgency in controlling this global pandemic," says  Fina Lladós, general manager of Amgen Iberia, which has a subsidiary in Barcelona.

Adaptive will extend its high throughput platform to screen the massive genetic diversity of the ...

Hospital de Sant Pau, QEV Tech engineering, Nissan and the Eurecat technology centre have developed the Q-Vent ventilator for use in hospital ICUs to alleviate the lack of equipment generated by Covid-19.

The Q-Vent ventilator, which has already been authorised by the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Healthcare Products (AEMPS) for use in clinical research, has been tested at the facilities of the Research Institute of the Hospital de Sant Pau with excellent results. 

Production of the Q-Vent will begin at Nissan’s Barcelona engine and gearbox plant.

Hospital Sant Pau and Eurecat are CataloniaBio & HealthTech members.

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SocialDiabetes, a digital healthstart-up and CataloniaBio & HealthTech member, has closed deals with insurance company Axa and Axenya to open up its telemedicine platform to diabetic patients in Mexico and other Latin American countries.

This platform, which also includes an app, allows healthcare professionals to monitor their patients and gives the user more control over their condition. The company uses a B2B business model and has received FDA and EMA approval after conducting several clinical trials. 

María Jesús Salido, CEO of SocialDiabetes, highlights that “the platform makes more sense than ever now with the pandemic, as diabetics are a ...

Chemotargets, a CataloniaBio & HealthTech member, has opened a €5-15 million round of investment to shift its business model from software to biotechnology. 

Founded in 2006 as a spin-off of the Systems Pharmacologylabatthe Hospital del Mar Research Institute, Chemotargets is expanding its activity to include drug discovery in several therapeutic areas, starting with oncology. 

At the same time, Chemotargets will continue providing the sector with its smart technology and predictive drug design platforms (ClarityⓇ, with the European Commission Seal of Excellence, and ProSurfScan).

To consolidate this transformation, the company is being advised by the Genesis Biomed consultancy firm ...

Invivo Capital, a life-sciences venture capital firm based in Barcelona and CataloniaBio & HealthTech member, has invested €2 million in Pulmobiotics, a company developing new drugs for lung infections using synthetic biology tools.

Pulmobiotics was set up this year as a spin-off of the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) by Dr Luis Serrano and Dr María Lluch, who highlight “the importance of finding new ways to treat and protect ourselves against infectious agents, as illustrated by the current Covid-19 pandemic.” This report from the Innovadores supplement of newspaper La Razón (in Spanish) explains in more detail.

Respiratory diseases (chronic ...

GlyCardial Diagnostics, a CataloniaBio & HealthTech member, has announced the appointment of Juan Carlos Kaski as Chief Medical Officer (CMO).

Juan Carlos Kaski is a professor of Cardiovascular Science and the Immediate-Past Director of the Cardiovascular and Cell Sciences Research Institute at St George’s (University of London). He is also an honorary consultant cardiologist at St George’s Hospital and the Royal Brompton Hospital in London. 

He has authored over 650 papers and book chapters, eight books and the most recent edition of the European Society of Cardiology Handbook of Cardiovascular Pharmacotherapy. He is editor-in-chief of the European Cardiology Review ...

Nostrum Biodiscovery (NBD), a spin-off of the IRB Barcelona and the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (BSC-CNS) and a CataloniaBio & HealthTech member, has appointed Ezequiel Mas del Molino as its new CEO. Mas replaces Robert Soliva, who is leaving the company to take on a new professional challenge.

Ezequiel Mas holds a PhD in Biomedicine from the University of Barcelona and an Executive MBA from the EAE Business School. His professional career combines research experience with the management and leadership of scientific projects, both in the industry (CIRCE Crystal Engineering) and public institutions (Leitat and BSC-CNS).

The company's activity focuses on ...

The General Directorate of Research and Innovation in Health of theGovernment of Catalonia will finance a clinical trial to study the protective effect of Ruti®, developed by Archivel Farma, on SARS-CoV-2 in healthcare professionals at high risk of contagion.

Ruti® is one of the most advanced therapeutic vaccine worldwide for different tuberculosis indications.

The trial will consist of administering Ruti® to 200 professionals and comparing the rate of infection and the clinical evolution of the infection with a group of 100 untreated professionals. The project will be led by Dr. Pere-Joan Cardona, biomedical researcher at the Germans Trias i ...

Hospital Clinic Barcelona, a benchmark in treating Covid-19 patients in Catalonia, has given CataloniaBio & HealthTech a list of its needs to pass along to biotechnology, medical devices and digital health companies and start-ups so they can help quickly address them through their R&D projects and products.

Biomedical company Avinent, a CataloniaBio & HealthTech member, and the Bages University Foundation have joined forces to create door handles that are opened with the forearm for the Althaia Foundation in Manresa (Barcelona). This model is safer in terms of spreading the Covid-19. They have also designed other safety materials the centre needed.

Avinent has manufactured these products using 3D technology, one of its lines of business in the field of dental prosthetics.

These three organisations (healthcare, academic and business) already had joint healthcare innovation projects under way.

Read the full article in Regió 7 (in Catalan).

The European Commission announced a one-year postponement of the application date for the new Medical Devices Regulation (MDR). The MDR was due to go into force by the end of May for all European companies developing and manufacturing these products for healthcare systems. The EC proposal will be sent to Parliament and Council in early April for approval.

This measure aims to take pressure off national authorities, notified bodies, manufacturers and other stakeholders so they can focus fully on urgent priorities related to the Covid-19 crisis.

A few months ago, the CataloniaBio & HealthTech Regulatory Affairs Workgroup held a training ...

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has published its regulatory science strategy to 2025. The strategy provides a plan for advancing regulatory science over the next five years, covering both human and veterinary medicines. 

It comes in response to the acceleration of the pace of innovation and the need for regulators to be ready to support the development of increasingly complex medicines that combine different technologies. 

The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic underlines the need for rapid and close engagement of all stakeholders and partners involved in the development and supervision of medicines in the European Union and globally, which is ...

Qiagen, a CataloniaBio & HealthTech member with a subsidiary in Barcelona, announced it has received emergency-use authorisation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its QIAstat-Dx Respiratory SARS-CoV-2 test to diagnose patients infected with the Covid-19.

QIAstat-Dx delivers results in about an hour and is the first testing solution to be deployed in the pandemic that can differentiate the novel coronavirus from 20 other serious respiratory infections.

The technology for the new test comes from Catalan company STAT-Dx, which Qiagen acquired in 2018.

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A team formed by professionals from Hospital Clínic, Germans Trias i Pujol Hospital and the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of the University of Barcelona collaborate, on the Catalan Health Service's behalf, in the development of three emergency ventilators to treat patients with Covid-19. 

The launch of the three models (OxyGEN, Respira and DAR) at the same time results from the effort of companies, hospitals, research centers, university and administration. 

OxyGEN and Respira models have been approved by the Spanish Agency of Medicines and Medical Devices (AEMPS) and will now carry out controlled tests on patients  ...

Pharmacelera, a CataloniaBio & HealthTech member, has been awarded a €1-million grant from the Horizon EIC Accelerator programme (formerly the SME Instrument) for emerging companies to accelerate innovations. The technology start-up received guidance from the Inveniam Group.

Pharmacelera is currently developing and providing software to accelerate drug research and development. One of the most popular is PharmScreen®, which allows users to virtually screen candidate molecules with a huge chemical diversity in proprietary, public or commercial compound libraries. 

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Pharmacelera and the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre work together on drug discovery

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Grifols, a CataloniaBio & HealthTech member, has entered into a formal collaboration with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other public health agencies of United States to collect plasma from convalescent Covid-19 patients and process it into a hyperimmune globulin.

The agreement also includes to support preclinical and clinical studies to determine the efficacy of the new therapy as a viable treatment for Covid-19 disease and as a platform for future emerging infectious diseases.

In addition, Grifols has accelerated the development and validation of a proprietary technology TMA (transcription-mediated amplification) based diagnostic procedure with a hight sensitivity. The test ...