IDIBELL celebrates the first edition of its Accelerator Meeting Point

The Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) held yesterday April 16th the first edition of its Accelerator Meeting Point, a meeting where CataloniaBio -association of biomedicine and health companies in Catalonia-, Biocat -institution responsible for the promotion of the life sciences and health sector in Catalonia- and Health Equity -Venture capital of the Barcelona Medical Association- spent a day with researchers in order to provide recommendations for research projects at a stage two to three years prior to reaching a commercial milestone.

IDIBELL, as manager of part of the research carried out at the Bellvitge University Hospital, the Catalan Institute of Oncology and the University of Barcelona, ​​is aware of the need for company expertise to be included in the roadmap of a research project. “The Accelerator Meeting Point not only seeks to receive recommendations but also increases the knowledge that companies have about our research and the possibilities of local collaborations,” says Raquel Egea, director of ​​innovation and business development area at IDIBELL.

 “One of the main problems in knowledge transfer in biomedical research centers is the limited amount of collaboration with the industry,” explains Egea. “When moving from bench to bedside, companies will be in charge of the final development, production and marketing of the product. Taking this into account, the company expertise is essential to properly make an appraisal of a research project”, she adds.

Aspects such as the type of regulation that will affect the results, the budget of a clinical trial, the type of protection appropriate to each market or the marketing approach are some of the issues that participants could contrast with the company experts.

Despite being aware that “there is a lack of collaboration between research groups and companies compared to other countries”, the participating researchers said that “companies are precisely the ones that end up assessing all sorts of technical aspects in order to finally acquire a technology or not; it becomes obvious to us, then, to seek collaboration with them in the early stages of the transfer process, a process that already begins with basic research”.