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 as part of the 2023 call for proposals for the new CaixaImpulse Health Innovation programme.
The initiative aims to encourage research to leave the laboratory and reach patients in the form of solutions capable of contributing to improving health. The awardees - from among more than 300 applications received - have been evaluated by a panel of international experts and professionals in the field of life sciences and health.
By business area, thirteen of the projects belong to the field of therapies; nine, the diagnostic one; five, for medical devices, and two, for digital health. In terms of funding, the awardees receive, depending on the degree of maturity of the project, between 50,000 and 500,000 euros to develop it over the following two years.
In this call, 15 projects have entered phase 1 (up to 50,000 euros); 12, in phase 2 (up to 150,000 euros), and two, in phase 3 (up to 500,000 euros). The program allows that, when projects reach specific development milestones, and after being evaluated by the evaluation committee, they can advance to later phases with more funding.
One of the investigations that has entered phase 3 (and which will have a grant 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 renal fibrosis. Based on this observation, they developed a test for the diagnosis and monitoring of renal fibrosis using urine samples, which is a non-invasive alternative that allows overcoming most of the drawbacks of renal biopsies.
CaixaImpulse Innovación, according to the promoters, supports biomedical projects in the field of innovation and transfer, in addition to "helping researchers to validate the assets and to define the exploitation and valorization strategy to bring the projects closer to the market". Therefore, in addition to financial support, they will also have access to mentoring, consulting and support from international experts in different areas of the innovation ecosystem.
Also, the researchers who lead projects in phase 2 will receive specialized training for four weeks, spread between Barcelona and Madrid, on technology transfer, intellectual property legislation, presentation to investors and closing of commercial agreements.
The call is made in collaboration with Caixa Capital Risc, one of the main venture capital investors in Spain, with more than twenty years of experience. In addition, in Portugal the call is made in partnership with the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education of Portugal, which subsidizes two of the Portuguese projects that have been selected.
