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The global biomedical market is in the midst of a period of stable growth and Catalonia, one of the most dynamic healthcare hubs in the world, is also enjoying this trend. 2018 was a positive year for the Catalan biomedical business fabric, in terms of funding, R&D alliances and advances, and launching new drugs and medical technology.

Biomedical companies in Catalonia raised a joint total of €106 million in investment in 53 operations, up 1.9% from 2017, according to the Study on investment in the Biomedical industry in Catalonia by CataloniaBio & ...

Roche Diabetes Care and Hospital de Granollers have signed a shared-risk agreement to provide patients with type-1 diabetes the latest technology for measuring glucose levels (Eversense XL).

The contract was facilitated by HiTT, a consultancy that specialises in transferring innovation to patients and a CataloniaBio & HealthTech member.

"Shared-risk agreements are being seen as solutions for getting technology to patients in which everyone wins: patients, healthcare providers and innovation developers," explains Oriol Solà-Morales, CEO of HiTT.

Photo: Lisa Huse, manager Roche Diabetes Spain; Dr Rafael Lledó, general manager of Hospital de Granollers, and Oriol Solà-Morales.

The CataloniaBio & HealthTech Internationalisation Workgroup (WG) held its first meeting on 26 April at the Barcelona Science Park with roughly twenty biopharmaceutical, medical technology and digital health companies and start-ups.

7.9% of exports from Catalonia are in the healthcare and life sciences sector, according to data from 2018. To explain the business opportunities available in new countries, this first session featured Clàudia Danesi, manager of International Public Procurement and Technical Offices at ACCIÓ, and Leyre Alonso, International Strategy Consultant for the same organisation, sharing their experiences. The Government of Catalonia Agency for Business Competitiveness currently has 40 offices ...

GoodGut has signed an agreement with Palex Medical to start selling its new non-invasive diagnostic tests RAID-Dx for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and RAID-Monitor for inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in Spain. Both are CataloniaBio & HealthTech members.

These are the first products developed by GoodGut to reach the patient after ten years of R&D and clinical validation with internationally prestigious digestive system researchers and gastroenterologists. They are all based on patented technology that detects a specific strain of bacteria for each of the pathologies in a faeces sample.

Palex is Spain’s leading company in the field of diagnosing and monitoring ...

After rising 120,000 euros in the seed capital round through crowdfunding, Mimetis Biomaterials is looking for partners to join its third round of investment for €2 milion (800,000 euros are covered by a Phase 2 SME Instrument grant).

Mimetis  provides the medical sector with a new generation of synthetic bone graft substitutes able to interplay with the host tissue to reach clinical success (MimetikOss). The company located in the Parc Tecnològic del Vallès (Barcelona) is fundraising now to enter the othopaedics market and launch its 3D-printed perzonalised bone regenerative solution. 

Enquiries: investors@mimetis.com

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Sagetis Biotech, CataloniaBio & HealthTech member, granted an exclusive license to develop, manufacture and commercialise its polymeric coating technology Viroshield™ to French company Aratinga.

This technology is able to modify the behavior of oncolytic viruses, improving their therapeutic effect by different means.

Sagetis Biotech is also developing novel SAG-101, a polymer-coated adenovirus for the treatment of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. It received orphan designation from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in 2017.

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Photo: Eduard Diviu, CEO of Sagetis Biotech

The highly-regarded Transactional Track Record (TTR) has ranked RCD as the leading private equity and venture capital advisor according to the numbers from its 2019 first quarter report in the Iberian market. The firm also placed in the top spots for most active M&A advisors. These numbers continue the trend of recent years.

The RCD team is made up of 300 professionals specialized in 20 areas of legal and sectorial practice as life sciences sector.

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Photo: Partners of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Department - © RCD

Transplant Biomedicals, CataloniaBio & HealthTech member, has completed patient enrolment of the clinical trial of Vivian® device for the transport and preservation of kidneys for transplantation. 

It is a multicenter and prospective study designed to evaluate the safety and performance of Vivian® in 32 patients of Hospital Clínic Barcelona, Vall d’Hebron University Hospital and Bellvitge University Hospital. Interim results are expected to be available next May and complete results in 1Q 2020.

“Vivian® has the profile of a true game changer in organ preservation market, and our development plan is poised to explore all these opportunities” says Dr. Joan ...

Vytrus Biotech, a CataloniaBio & HealthTech member, won three awards at the 2019 In-Cosmetics fair held from 2 to 4 April in Paris.

The latest ingredient launched to market by this Terrassa-based company, Olea Vitae, was named the most innovative product of the fair (Innovation Zone Best Active Ingredient Award). The active ingredient is obtained from the stem cells of olive trees and used to combat skin ageing.

In-Cosmetics also recognised the company's work in promoting the sustainability of its active ingredient Sarcoslim Reshape, which helps reduce fat, with the Green Award.

Finally, the publication Cosmetics Design gave the company ...

The Eurecat technology centre, member of CataloniaBio & HealthTech, and the Maresme Healthcare Consortium have developed a new medical product that avoids the appearance of prolonged pressure ulcers.

It is a protector with a 3D fabric and sock-like, easy to use, which makes it more comfortable for users than other solutions on the market. It is the brainchild of Dr Jesús Alòs, a vascular surgeon at Mataró Hospital.

Pressure ulcers on the foot are skin lesions caused by the application of constant pressure as a result of reduced mobility on the part of the patient.

CataloniaBio & HealthTech, the Mental Health Cluster of Catalonia and the Food’n Nutrition Cluster held the second Intercluster workshop Nutrition and health: discovering new challenges, on 5 April at the Barcelona Science Park (PCB), with roughly forty Catalan companies and organisations. 

The session began with two inspirational conferences by Miquel Ràmia of Made of Genes and Mariona Serra and Sara Ramió of GoodGut, who highlighted that there is a lot to do in both the field of microbiota and genomics applied to nutrition. “The ideal treatment should include reinforcing intestinal microbiota and defining the bacterial signature for each ...

CataloniaBio & HealthTech has launched its third Workgroup (WG) which will focus on identifying internationalisation needs for associated businesses and organisations, as well as sharing experiences and encouraging internationalisation through knowledge transfer and networking.

The Internationalisation WG will be coordinated by Albert Giralt (Avinent) and Alfons Nonell-Canals (Mind the Byte), both of which are board members, with support from Melqui Calzado (secretary general of the association).

A presentation to launch the Workgroup will be held on 26 April at 9.30 am, at the Barcelona Science Park.

CataloniaBioHT also has WGs for Regulatory Affairs and Innovation, both of which have ...

Dr Josep Esteve Soler, former president of Esteve Group and member of the sixth generation of a family of pharmacists, has passed away in Barcelona at the age of 89.

Esteve joined the company very young, in 1953. With a Doctorate in Pharmacy and a Postgraduate Degree in Business Administration and Management from Iese, he took over the management of the company in 1979 and held the presidency, along with his siblings Joan and Montserrat, after the death of his father, Antoni Esteve i Subirana (the founder of Esteve). 

Dr Josep Esteve was the architect of the company's growth ...

Laura Tarrats, a midwife at Hospital Germans Trias, has designed a heating belt to alleviate labour pains, sciatica and other discomforts that arise in the third trimester of pregnancy.

“The need to create this device came out of day-to-day experience. As midwives, we offer ways to comfort women before they can have an epidural or when they want to have a natural birth. One of these is to apply heat locally. The challenge was to keep the heat in these areas while still allowing the mother to move around during the birth,” explains Tarrats, who presented the heating belt ...

NEOS Surgery, a CataloniaBio & HealthTech member, is one of twenty technology transfer and investment organisations and companies chosen to participate in the Early stage financing of RTO spin-off companies event hosted by the European Commission (EC) to share their innovation and funding experience. The meeting was held on 7 March in the headquarters of EC in Brussels with representatives from the European Investment Fund (EIF-BEI), the Commission's Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, Tecnalia Ventures, German Tech Transfer Management GmbH, Yeda R&D Company Ltd. of the Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS), among others.

The presentations were introduced and moderated by ...

Minoryx Therapeutics has appointed Didier Le Normand as group Chief Financial Officer (CFO) as well as general manager of its recently opened Belgian subsidiary.

Le Normand started his career in banking in the US and France and then established a long international career in finance and operations as well as M&A transactions for private and listed companies, particularly in the healthcare and technology sectors. He was CFO at STAT-DX, a Catalan diagnostics company solded to Qiagen in 2018.

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Photo: Didier Le Normand - © Minoryx Therapeutics

Anaconda Biomed, a CataloniaBio & HealthTech member, appointed two new senior executives, Dr Lieven Huysse as Chief Medical Officer (CMO) and Jordi Cardona that will serve as its new Manufacturing Director.

As Anaconda Biomed’s CMO, Dr. Huysse will lead the implementation of clinical trials of the company’s breakthrough advanced thrombectomy system for the treatment of ischemic stroke. Dr. Huysse brings to the company more than 20 years of senior leadership experience in the medical device and pharmaceutical fields (Intrinsic Therapeutics Inc., Menarini...).

Vidal brings to Anaconda more than 30 years of experience in the medical device field, leading production ...

Public procurement in Catalonia has to overcome various challenges, such as the end goal for medicines, technology and, in general, new healthcare solutions in hospitals. The CataloniaBio & HealthTech Innovation Workgroup brought together six experts from companies, hospitals and legal services for the Hospital Connection event And how do you buy? on 22 February in Barcelona to debate the current framework and how it is expected to change.

New models for the relationship between businesses (supplier) and hospitals (purchaser) must be developed and the imbalance between large corporations and hospitals is a barrier to negotiations, agreed Ferran Rodríguez, head ...

Interview to Jaume Amat, president of CataloniaBio & HealthTech since 2018 and CEO of Specipig:

It has been one year since the merger of CataloniaBio and the HealthTech Cluster. How would the board take stock of the past year?

When we started this new era, we believed that the merger addressed a trend and a real need in the sector resulting from the transversal nature of new healthcare solutions. One year later, we’re more sure of this than ever. As an association, we are much more diverse and, therefore, much richer and with more complimentary assets. We can be proud ...

Banco Sabadell's BStartup has granted more than 200 million euros of funding to startups. The entity has been supporting emerging companies for more than five years, which has led to 2,895 startups becoming customers of the bank. Furthermore, through its investment vehicles BStartup10, Sabadell Venture Capital and InnoCells, the entity now holds a direct stake in 67 companies.

Further proof of Banco Sabadell’s commitment to the entrepreneurial ecosystem is the presence as a gold partner of 4 Years From Now (4YFN) organised by the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and gold sponsor, for the fifth consecutive year, of the ...