The La Caixa Foundation will allocate 3.3 million euros to promote 29 innovative biomedical projects with the capacity to reach the market and society. These are projects developed in 20 research centers, hospitals and universities in Spain and Portugal, and selected within the framework of the 2023 call of the new CaixaImpulse Health Innovation program.
The initiative aims to encourage research to leave the laboratory and reach patients in the form of solutions capable of contributing to improving their health. The winners - from among more than 300 applications received - have been evaluated by a panel of international experts and professionals in the field of life and health sciences.
By business area, 13 of the projects belong to the field of therapies, 9 to diagnosis, 5 to medical devices and 2 to digital health. Regarding financing, the winners receive, depending on the degree of maturity of the project, between 50,000 and 500,000 euros to develop it in the following two years.
In this call, 15 projects have accessed phase 1 (up to 50,000 euros); 12, to phase 2 (up to 150,000 euros) and 2 to phase 3 (up to 500,000 euros). The program allows that, when projects reach specific development milestones and after being assessed by the evaluation committee, they can advance to subsequent phases with greater financing.
One of the investigations that has entered phase 3 (and will receive a subsidy of 300,000 euros) is the one led by Francesc E. Borràs, from the Germans Trias i Pujol Health Sciences Research Institute Foundation. His team has discovered a correlation between the levels of vitronectin in the urine and the degree of kidney fibrosis. Based on this observation, they are developing a test for the diagnosis and monitoring of renal fibrosis from urine samples, which is a non-invasive alternative that allows us to overcome most of the drawbacks of renal biopsies.
CaixaImpulse Innovation, according to its promoters, provides support to biomedical projects in the field of innovation and transfer "helping researchers to validate their assets and define their exploitation and valorization strategy to bring the projects closer to the market", so in addition financial support will also access mentoring, consulting and support from international experts in different areas of the innovation ecosystem.
Likewise, researchers leading projects in phase 2 will receive specialized training for 4 weeks, spread between Barcelona and Madrid, on technology transfer, intellectual property legislation, presentation to investors and closing of commercial agreements.
The call is carried out in collaboration with Caixa Capital Risc, one of the main venture capital investors in Spain, with more than twenty years of experience. Furthermore, in Portugal, the call is made in partnership with the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education of Portugal, which subsidizes two of the Portuguese projects that have been selected
Since 2015, when the La Caixa Foundation created the first support program, until now, the entity has allocated 21.3 million euros to support 202 projects, which have led to the creation of 42 spin-offs (derived companies). , which in turn have obtained additional co-financing, through other competitive calls or private investors, worth more than 100 million euros.
