Objective: innovation

The Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona) seeks to transfer the knowledge generated in its 23 labs to society. To achieve this goal and to take maximum advantage of innovation potential, the centre has set up a consultancy board to address technology transfer and innovation affairs. The newly launched Business Advisory Board (BAB) comprises 10 members, all with extensive international experience pertinent to the main needs of IRB Barcelona.

The 10 members of the BAB are eminent representatives from pharmaceutical companies such as Novartis, Esteve, Ferrer and Biokit, from venture capital enterprises such as Ysios Capital and KLS Partners, and agents, consultants and academics specialized in promoting agreements between the public and private sectors and in detecting business opportunities. The BAB is chaired by Dr. Maria Freire, president of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health in the US. The evaluation performed by the BAB is expected to have an impact on IRB Barcelona’s capacity to set up new spin-off companies, obtain patent licenses, and establish stable collaboration agreements with leading pharmaceutical companies.

“The time is ripe for IRB Barcelona,” explains the director of the centre Joan J. Guinovart. “We have consolidated the scientific strategy of the institute and it is now crucial to strengthen technology transfer. Excellence in science should be translated into innovation and the invaluable support of the BAB will help us to achieve this,” states Guinovart.

In 2009, IRB Barcelona launched an Innovation Office with the objective to protect, develop and commercialize the discoveries and inventions made by researchers and to provide them with advice relating to transfer issues. “In these first few years we have channelled innovation issues, detected needs, and implemented several programmes. It is now crucial for us to have a high-profile consultative body that guides us towards greater competitiveness,” explains Cristina Horcajada, head of the Innovation Office.

Innovation at IRB Barcelona

Since it was founded in 2005, IRB Barcelona has set up three spin-off companies, namely Omnia Molecular, Iproteos and Inbiomotion, from technologies developed by Lluís Ribas in the gene Translation Lab, Teresa Tarragó and Ernest Giralt in the Peptides and Proteins Lab, and Roger Gomis in the Growth Control and Cancer Metastasis Lab, respectively. Furthermore, in the last three years, IRB Barcelona has undertaken 90 collaborations with companies and has 20 registered patents, four licensed.

In addition, in March 2013 IRB Barcelona started two proof-of-concept projects, each awarded half a million euros from the Botín Foundation as part of the Mind the Gap Programme. These projects are as follows: “Colostage”, which seeks to develop a diagnostic test for metastasis of colon cancer to the liver, and “Nostrum Drug Discovery”, a computational platform to probe molecules with pharmacological potential. The projects are linked to the Colorectal Cancer Lab, headed by Eduard Batlle, and the Molecular Modelling and Bioinformatics Lab, run by Modesto Orozco.

Other programmes managed by the Innovation Office include the technology accelerator CancerTec, funded by the Obra Social “la Caixa”, and Prova’t financed by the Generalitat de Catalunya.