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1,156 is the number of entities making up the BioRegion, an increase of 40% compared to the figures of 2009, according to data from Biocat Directory 2011. If we analyze the nature of these organizations, we see that Catalonia has 449 research groups, 80 research centres, 57 buildings for technology and science service, 28 support organizations, 19 technology and science parks, 15 hospitals, 12 universities, 9 major infrastructures, 6 technology centres (+TECNIO) and a rough amount of 481 companies engaged in biotechnology. 268 of these companies are within the field of so-called “red biotechnology”, this is the biotechnology applied to health care. The Catalan BioRegion has a pipeline of over 300 products in medical technologies, of which 169 are in production. It is worth noting the clinging to oncology and nervous system as the first therapeutic areas of research and new patents, in addition to the multiplication of public private partnerships. Furthermore, it has generated jobs for more than 29,000 people overall, according to the Biocat Report 2011.

Catalonia has 20.5% of biotech companies in the state but this proportion is higher as for the economic weight, since it represents 29.4% of the total in the state with an estimated turnover of €15.600M. It is also the most dynamic community, responsible for the creation of 23% of new biotech start-up in 2010 and it is a leader in research, as it is proved by the results of the first call of the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres and Units of Excellence - where the Catalan research centres obtained 50% of the awarded grants – and the fund granting from the European Research Council. All this wealth has come up from local initiative and it is strongly rooted in the Catalan production, as it is evidenced by the fact that only 16% of the companies in the BioRegion are subsidiary of multinational companies.

Biopol’H

The biotechnology cluster of Biopol'H has 80 research groups (IDIBELL, IBEC and CSI), 12 patents, 4 hospitals (Bellvitge Hospital, Duran i Reynals Hospital, Broggi Moises Hospital and General Hospital of L'Hospitalet) and is part of the HUBc (Health University Barcelona Campus). Moreover, it has 11 companies and 4 of these are settled in their Bioincubator, besides 2 university groups with projection of future spin-offs.

• Due to its index of excellence (27.3) the IDIBELL is at position 115 out of the 500 best-rated institutions in the world in all disciplines. The impact of their publications put it among the top 10 research centres in Spain (SCIMAGO SIR World Report 2011).

• The ICO is the hospital with the highest quality research in Spain – the first position for its normalized impact index by its publications as an organization dedicated to Health (SCIMAGO SIR World Report 2011). 70% of the articles were published in the most influential journals. It is the 10th best hospital in Spain, according the Ranking Web of World.

• IBEC was a finalist in the Severo Ochoa Programme for Centre of Excellence 2011.

• The Hub has received the TOP-20 Hospitals Award for the fourth time, being the winner in the field of Hospital Management. It is a tertiary reference centre in Stroke, in resistant osteoarticular infections and it has been the first Spanish hospital to undertake a partial reconstruction of breast via endoscopy – the fourth hospital performing this technique worldwide.

• The UB, Campus of International Excellence, is first on the ranking of higher education centres in Spain (SCIMAGO SIR World Report 2011). If we focus on the teaching of Life Sciences and Medicine, it moves into 68th place of the World University Rankings, with the honour of being the only Spanish university among the top 100 of this ranking. According to ISI Web, it was the 30th world leader in scientific production in the decade 1999-2009.

• The CSI has won the “Union 2010 Award for Innovation in Management” for their project ‘Lean Healthcare: quality and sustainability’ and it is one of the prize winners of TOP-20 Hospitals Award.

These are some of the honourable mentions, prizes and awards received by the entities forming Biopol’H.

The award honors a person whose career and continuing line of research constitutes a significant contribution in the field of Health Sciences, especially regarding women. In the case of Manel Esteller, the distinction is for his work in the knowledge of genetic and epigenetic alterations that contribute to the onset of breast, ovary and uterus.

Manel Esteller will receive the award during the VIII ceremony award and grants of Fundación Dexeus, Women's Health to be held on 18 January in the Auditorium of USP Dexeus Institute in Barcelona, at 19pm.

Manel Esteller is the author of over three hundred scientific papers and is one of the most cited researchers in the field of biomedicine, being a world leader in the knowledge of the mechanisms that regulate the activity of the genome.

The winners in the last two editions were Cristina Garmendia (Minister for Science and Innovation 2008-2011) and Joan Massagué (Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center).

Rob Surgical Systems Inc., a technology company driven by IBEC group leader Alicia Casals and senior researcher Manuel Frigola, as well as Josep Amat of the Automatic Control and Computer Engineering Department of the UPC, was approved by the university’s governing council on Friday.

The company will manufacture the systems that IBEC’s Robotics group has been developing in recent years. The first product will be a minimally invasive robotic station, Bitrack, which has advantages over those currently on the market since it occupies less space in the operating room. Its specially adapted user interface also enables a faster start-up, reducing the cost of interventions.

The new company will validate the initial prototype of Bitrack and obtain the certifications necessary to start marketing it in Europe and the United States. Rob Surgical Systems already has the support of the medical direction of the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, Arizona, and aims to look for other alliances to expand the market.

The competition categories awarded innovation in medical devices, business models and health care processes and procedures.  

In order to bring out innovative projects in the healthcare sector that have a good preparation and the necessary characteristics to be launched onto the market, the Consortium Biopol’H organized and developed the First Healthcare Innovation Competition, which came to an end on December 12 with the selection of the winners.

This event was an innovation itself, since it is the first time a healthcare innovation competition like this has been organized, which makes Biopol’H become pioneer of this kind. Biopol’H did not only want to plant the seed but it also accompanied the participants throughout the process, guiding them with a training course in healthcare innovation.

The initiative of Biopol’H promotes knowledge transfer in the medical care sector and, encouraging doctors and staff to generate richness from their research based on the experience and their relationship with patients. 

The jury was composed of Candela Calle, General Manager of the ICO; Álex de Jaureguizar, Director of the IBEC; Lluís Pareras, Manager of the Innovation Division of the College of Physicians of Barcelona; Montserrat Martín, Research Director of the CSI and Doctor Ramon López, Director of Biopol’H. The jury awarded three prizes for three different categories.

There were two winning projects, presented by Dr. Antoni Mateu, Bellvitge University Hospital, in the category of “award for innovation in medical care devices;” they will share the award. The first project’s name is TORACOTRAQ – a new method developed by the percutaneous tracheostomy technique. It also makes a second function possible; this is drilling for the thoracic insertion of a chest drain in high security conditions. The second winning project in this category is called FIX-MOSS, and it is a very simplified instrument for fixing the orotracheal tube in intubated patients, either connected to mechanical ventilation or not. The second function is to prevent the patient from biting and pressing the tube that goes between the teeth. 

As regards the category of “award for innovation in health-care processes and procedures”, the winner was the CUSTENT Project, presented by Dr. Antoni Rosell, Bellvitge University Hospital. This project aims to adapt the design of tracheobronchial prostheses to the complex anatomy with a fast and highly efficient industrial process. This new design enables at the same time to overcome the complications arising from the mass production based on predetermined moulds.

In the last category, the “award for innovation in business models” was not awarded. Each prize consists of an economic funding to support the implementation of activities worth €5,000 and a six-month Plug&Play stay in the Biopol’H Bioincubator (in cases where starting the business involves the creation of a company).

The jury wanted to highlight the great interest of all the projects and thank the participants for their devotion, interest and effort in the projects entering the Healthcare Innovation Competition of Biopol’H.  

Business angels and people with enterprise: the perfect combination

Good ideas often fail in getting to the market because they cannot find the necessary funding to make them come true. This is why it is so important for entrepreneurs to have contact with the networks of Business Angels and investors, making it possible for their projects to reach a satisfactory conclusion in a relationship of mutual cooperation. With the idea of facilitating this relationship, Biopol’H organized a new event addressed to investors and entrepreneurs: the Investment Workshop. This theoretical workshop for investors and entrepreneurs was held on December 13 in collaboration with La Salle Technova.

The Workshop, which was designed to teach how to find financing opportunities and funding partners, was complemented with the Investment Forum, a presentation of real projects that took place on December 15. Among the participants there were business angels, venture capital fund, financial institutions and corporate investors, all of them close to Biopol’H and the Barcelona Science Park. The projects presented aroused interest among the investors, which could later turn into funding.   

As for the projects, they are six innovative ideas within the health sector that have been made by the companies Arque Bio, WIRS, ImmunoNovative Developments, Adbroncus, Janus Developments and SOM Biotech. They include, for instance, the design and laboratory production of “functional proteins”, new systems of physical rehabilitation, treatments for patients who develop resistance to medication (such as antibiotics), solutions for the diagnosis and treatment of respiratory diseases, projects to save the death valley between basic research and its conversion into an effective medication that reaches the market as a commercial product, and the research of new applications for drugs that are now being already used in some diseases. 

The health sector may be the way in to business success, as it has been proved this year with the project Transform and Provide Employment of Biopol’H. Transform and Provide Employment had the objective of promoting innovation and enterprise restructuring so that companies and entrepreneurs can overcome the difficult situation of crisis in which they are immersed. In December the project marked the end with a good assessment. As far as territory is concerned, it had an impact in L’Hospitalet and the region of Baix Llobregat.

The project had three lines of action focused on health: Innovation, Industry and Guidance. The first one was aimed at improving the capabilities and skills of health personnel, the awareness of the transition from research to innovation, and the establishment of inter-cluster environments. Secondly, Industry worked on the recruitment of new production activity, on identifying available resources in the company and the boost for the change in local companies. Finally, the third line of action, Guidance, was focused on professional profiles, new models of advice and innovative training – all these basic features to achieve an efficient organizational change.

The collaboration with Kimbcn has been essential, thanks to the fieldwork done by this organization in corporations of the health sector – complementary companies, auxiliary companies and companies dedicated to biomedicine/biotechnology and Healthcare which are located in the target territory. The balance of this action after working for one year is very positive. There is still a great market niche to exploit in fields such as research – clinical and basic – or medical care for patients. Therefore, it is a good field of work for innovative companies to create more jobs in the city of L’Hospitalet and the region of Baix Llobregat.

Line of innovation

Enshrined in the line of innovation of the Project Transform and Provide Employment, Biopol’H has done all kind of training and networking activities throughout this year. Moreover, the Consortium Biopol’H currently has two students of the course Healthcare Administrative Management working as interns.

The presence of business, entrepreneur and scientist women is more and more important every day in our country. 

Think of a talented woman who holds a high position in the hierarchy of the company and has three children. Probably the question she might listen to more often about her professional life is: how do you manage to take care of your children? This is one of the denunciations of the project FemTalent, which works from the Generalitat of Catalonia to eliminate the discrimination between men and women at work. This is a project supported by Biopol’H, which is an aerial and at the same time works to have a full equality in the cluster it forms.  

This is why this Forum awarded Biopol’H with a certificate in recognition of its work and support. In particular, it is outstanding the collaboration of Biopol'H to make visible the female talent, the networking between professionals from various sectors and the promotion of women in the corporate governance in companies.

Female inequality, something to get through

Stereotypes that still bind women to domestic life as a "natural habit" with some inherent obligations in the gender are something that is really difficult to eradicate in our society. And so it is understood by FemTalent, as it was evident in the First FemTalent Forum organized on December 2; besides, it had 500 participants, a number to be proud of. It meant a chance for business, entrepreneur and scientist women to meet up and share their experiences throughout their careers. For FemTalent the key to achieve professional equality is to lean, meet and interact in order to get professional and personal balance.

In this meeting a series of round tables took place dealing with the thorniest issues of female inequality in the professional environment. The panel discussions were about family reconciliation, the "glass ceiling" that describes the absence of women in administrative councils, the gender bias in government, the high dropout rates of employment of women, the cultural choice between a career or a family and so on.

Some of the people who participated in the FemTalent Forum were Joana Ortega, Vice President of the Generalitat of Catalonia; Josep Piqué, Chairman of the XPCAT; Miquel Valls, President of the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce; Henry Etzkowitz, researcher at Stanford University, the vice-chancellors of the UOC (Open University of Catalonia), the University of Girona and the Ramon Llull University.  Ortega highlighted the capacity of the FemTalent Forum for bringing together a key asset of the country: talent. According to her, nowadays we have “the best-prepared generation of women in history. We need the female talent to reach the board of directors to change attitudes as regards work.” For the Vice President of the Government, women will get equality when they gain time, this is the reconciliation between professional and private life. "Time can be a trap for women; we have irrational schedules for everyone that should be more adapted to the real needs of citizens."

Esther Sanchez, Secretary for Employment, also attended the event and wanted to emphasize the need to modernize the economy through innovation in work organization. "The crisis cannot be an excuse to justify that the current situation against women but we need to talk about equality when it comes to labor reform: if we are innovative in equality, everybody is benefited," said Sanchez. She added that the FemTalent Project is a “pioneering action, an example of what is to be institutionally promoted.” The ceremony ended with the presentation of certificates to the selected women for the course “Women in managing boards of directors,” free organized by FemTalent together with the  business school EADA.

The conference, which took place in Madrid, brought together 75 technical experts from science parks and universities around the state.

On December 14 a training meeting was held, organized by the Spanish Network of University Knowledge Tranfer Offices (RedOTRI) and the APTE. It was addressed to the technical experts of technology transfer from the Spanish universities and the network of specialists from the science and technology parks member of the APTE. A total of 77 technical experts participated in this event, 19 came from 12 parks member of the APTE and the remaining 56 mainly came from universities and research centres.

This conference is one of the training activities carried out by the APTE within the collaboration agreement signed by the association with the Ministry of Science and Innovation, which complemented other actions developed by the APTE to promote and encourage the internationalization and transfer of technology in the science and technology parks.

The meeting was opened by the Vice President for Research at the Complutense University of Madrid, Joaquin Plumet Ortega; the coordinator of the RedOTRI, Ismael Rodrigo Martinez; the Director of the University School of Business Studies, Miguel Angel Sastre Castillo; the Vice Chairman of Transfer and Assessment of Knowledge by the Ministry of Science and Innovation, Jose Luis Perez Salinas, and Paco Negre, General Manager of Espaitec and Vice President of the APTE.

There were a speech and two round tables after the opening ceremony and the presentation of the conference. The inaugural lecture, given by Ferran Moreno, who is member of the consulting ATOMM, made a tour around the mechanisms and sources of funding for business projects, a parliament that was used to introduce the later panel discussions. Then the first round table took place under the name "Investors in innovative businesses," where different points of view on the interaction between universities and investment institutions were explained in addition to the proposals made to improve the opportunities of collaboration between both sectors. Many collaborators took part in this discussion, moderated by Paco Negre: Peter Trucharte, Manager of AEBAN, Maria Delgado, Department of Coordination and Promotion of the Centre for Industrial Technological Development (CDTI) and Angela Ensign, Director of Studies of ASCRI.

The second panel discussion made known for investors the role of professionals from OTRIs and the technical experts from parks as interlocutors in the process of innovation, pointing out the support provided by the offices of transfer to the external agents who are interested in universities as a source of ideas for profitable business. This table was run by Antonio Peñafiel, Director of Service of Business Cooperation and Employment Promotion, University of Malaga, and it was attended by Fernando Conesa, Assistant Director of the OTRI of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC); Manel Arrufat, responsible of the Companies Creation Area, UPC; Emma Crespo, Head of Business Incubator of the Science Park at the Carlos III University of Madrid, and David Calvo Mallon, investment analyst in Uninvest.

Founded in 1589, the Royal Academy of Pharmacy is a public scientific society, whose functions are to promote research and study of Pharmaceutical Sciences and the related sciences: advise the Government, public Administrations, public Organizations, the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products, science and technology agencies, any public or private institution that may request on something that concerns the Pharmaceutical Sciences and Medicine, anything related to these and to health promoting and the preparation of reports on any issue of this subject matter.

Therefore, RANF is mainly devoted to the promotion and diffusion of pharmaceutical science and everything related to health, being this last function of great social interest.

Manel Esteller joining the Academy is due to his contributions to the study of epigenetics in health and disease. He is the author of over two hundred scientific papers, a member of numerous international scientific societies and publishers, and reviewer for several publications. He currently holds the chairmanship of the Epigenetics Society.

Born in Sant Boi de Llobregat in 1968, he is an international benchmark in the field of epigenetics. He graduated in Medicine at the University of Barcelona in 1992, where he received his PhD in 1996 with paper on the molecular genetics of endometrial carcinoma. From 1997 to 2001 he did the postdoctoral studies at Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, United States), where he studied the relationship between DNA methylation and cancer. In fact, his work was crucial to prove that all human tumours have a specific chemical alteration in common: the hypermethylation of tumour suppressor genes.

His remarkably original contributions help review and complement scientific paradigms that were supposed to be well established by showing the importance of external factors in the direct modification of genes with effects on its regulation. His scientific work of great extent despite his youth shows how epigenetic modifications of hereditary material can contribute to the development of aging and cancer processes. He also set the foundation for the recent approval of some antitumor drugs and opens the way to know the human epigenome, an international project in which Esteller plays an outstanding role.

The conference, which was held in the auditorium of the ICO Hospitalet, was chaired by Boi Ruiz, Minister of Health; Núria Marín, mayoress of L'Hospitalet; Josep Maria Vilà, President of the ICO, and Candela Calle, General Manager.

In his words, Boi Ruiz thanked the efforts of health professionals in the current socio-economic context and highlighted the work of the ICO, indicating that it is a reference and example for the Catalan Public Health. In this regard, he especially emphasized the model of networking with the regional hospitals.

In the conference there was also a tribute to Paul Vilada, founder and first president of the ICO, who had died this year. His widow and two of his children attended the event.

Three round tables were held afterwards. One of them was on “Balance and Results Model of Oncology Care ICO”, another one on “Successful Projects” and the last one was on “Society and Cancer”, which involved representatives of different social entities collaborating with the ICO. Finally, Enric Massip, a former elite handball player and manager of FC Barcelona gave a lecture on "Building high-performance teams”.

The report analysed the scientific articles published by more than three thousand institutions from 104 different countries between 2005 and 2009 and put them in the ranking according two indicators. On the one hand, the normalized impact factor – the relationship between the average impact of a scientific organization and the world average impact of publications in this scientific discipline during the same period. On the other hand, the rate of excellence, which is the percentage of articles published by researchers of an institution that are among the most quoted articles in the scientific field worldwide.

The ranking of normalized impact factor is led by the George Institute for International Health (Australia) and the American Cancer Society (USA), whereas 14 research centres in Catalonia are among the 500 best-rated institutions of the world. These include the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia (8), the Catalan Institute of Oncology (33), a member institution of IDIBELL, and the Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (55). The IDIBELL is the Catalan centre in the fourth best position, ranked in place 115, close to the National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) in Madrid, which is in the 113th position.

According to the rate of excellence, the top positions in the ranking are for the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research (EUA) and the Howards Hughes Medical Institute (EUA) with 64.43 and 61.68 respectively.

Further information about SCImago ranking 2011 at: www.scimagoir.org

The Comprehensive Health Consortium has organized a Christmas campaign to collect food together with the Food Bank Foundation. Three centres of the Consortium will be for three days in December the points for food collection for the professionals, visitors to the centre or neighbours that want to.

The Dos de Mayo Hospital, the General Hospital of L’Hospitalet and Moisès Broggi Hospital of Sant Joan Despí will set some tables to collect donations and the opening hour will be 7.30am to 4pm. The Food Bank recommends foodstuff to be easy preserving and long lasting products: rice, dried beans, pasta, tins of canned fish, oil, etc.

The Food Bank is a private independent and non-profit charity that aims to fight hunger in the immediate environment; prevent food supplies that are not marketable to be destroyed and eventually, get them to the most deprived people in the nearest surroundings.

The food collected in this campaign will be administered by the Food Bank of the province of Barcelona and will be distributed through approved charities, which can guarantee that food arrives at its final destination because of their direct relationship with the people in need.

The Pere Virgili and Antoni Gimbernat Awards are given annually to one surgeon from Spain and one from abroad, respectively, in recognition of their commendable achievements in their professional careers.

Prizes are awarded after the nominated surgeons have decided by ballot themselves. Voting takes place during the General Assembly of the entity and the winning surgeons become honorary members of the Society. This is the most important award a surgeon can receive in Spain.

The award was given to Dr Jaurrieta during the opening ceremony of the academic year in the classroom Gimbernat of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Catalonia last October 20, 2011.

Dr Jaurrieta gave a speech about his healthcare career in the field of General and Digestive Surgery and in the academic world of college.

It was a very emotional ceremony for the usual solemnity of the event, the characteristics of the classroom and the warm applause of the audience, who recognized the work done by Dr Jaurrieta and his personality, both as a surgeon and as a man.

Josep Planell and George Altankov will coordinate the projects, which will focus on solutions for pseudarthrosis and the degenerative skeletal disorders, respectively. This is the third call for projects under this initiative, and out of the 41 proposals received by the EuroNanoMed, only eight were chosen to get financing.

The project Angiogenic nanostructured materials for non-consolidating bone fractures (nAngioFrac) – coordinated by Josep Planell’s Bio/non-bio Interactions for Regenerative Medicine group at the IBEC – brings together four other academic, clinical and industrial partners from France and Poland. Its objective is to develop biodegradable and bioactive nanostructured scaffolds, made-to-measure to ensure the correct release of calcium, a major player in angiogenesis (this is, the formation of new blood vessels), to promote tissue repair in pseudoarthrosis. This disease is caused by inadequate healing of a fractured bone and sometimes during the growing-up process, so it results in a ‘false articulation’.

One important strategy in tissue regeneration is developing ‘intelligent’ scaffolds that can stimulate progenitor cells to colonize them and activate their natural behaviour, resulting in the regeneration of new healthy living tissue. Currently, one of the main limitations of present scaffolds is their lack of vascularisation to withstand the growth and viability of these regenerated tissues. The nAngioFrac consortium will design, develop and characterize fully inorganic nanostructured porous CaP glass ceramics and hybrid (PLA/CaP glass) nanofibre scaffolds, materials able to trigger angiogenesis and induce vascularization due to their release of calcium ions, and study their biological response in vitro and in vivo.

The second project is Nanostructured Gel for Cellular Therapy of Degenerative Skeletal Disorders (STRUCTGEL) and will be coordinated by George Altankov, responsible of Molecular Dynamics at Cell-biomaterial Interface group. It involves partners from Germany, France and Turkey. With the aim of tackling degenerative skeletal tissue disorders such as osteoarthritis and osteoporosis, the consortium will combine high performance materials and advanced nanotechnology to design an implant with unique properties which can influence site-specific tissue regeneration.

The ‘toolbox’ of the project consists of slices of biocompatible hydrogel with controlled mechanical properties and degradation time, being combined with nanofibres to provide spatial orientation to cells. Different techniques will be used to incorporate biologically-active molecules and to assemble the 3D gel and nanofibre structure after seeding with mesenchymal stem cells. Single slices and fully assembled bone and cartilage structures will be propagated in vitro to prove biocompatibility and bioactivity, and feasibility studies will be carried out in vivo.

Under the ERA-NET scheme, projects are evaluated by a centralized selection committee, but each partner of the project is funded by its own home country. Therefore, although the EuroNanoMed projects have already been selected, these projects still have to go through ad-hoc national calls before starting.