Experts call for more investment, more public-private collaboration and a more stable environment to improve health innovation

ITEMAS, I3PT, FENIN and SEIB organize the most important state event that brings together the innovative ecosystem in health technology

Leading players in the industrial sector, the hospital sector and the network of Spanish bioengineers meet at the conference "Matchmaking Health Technology - In vitro Diagnosis: boost to the value chain in health"
The aim of this day is to support the creation of high value industrial fabric, validate new technological innovations, define new business models and launch the new health value chain "Smarth Health Value Chain"

If we want to develop a reference and sustainable health system, we need to make reforms to have a framework of stability, increase economic investment, enhance public-private collaboration, and improve access to innovation. This is one of the main conclusions reached by experts in the hospital innovation sector who have participated in the conference "Matchmaking Health Technology - In vitro Diagnosis: boosting the health value chain”, Which has been organized this Thursday by the Platform for Revitalization and Innovation of the industrial capacities of the NHS and its effective transfer to the productive sector (ITEMAS), theParc Taul Research and Innovation Instituteí (I3PT), la Spanish Federation of Health Technology Companies (FENIN) and the Spanish Society of Biomedical Engineering (SEIB) in the Parc Taulí in Sabadell.

The aim of the day was to support the creation of high value industrial fabric, validate new technological innovations, define new business models and launch the new health value chain “Smarth Health Value Chain”.

In the current context of economic recovery and the restoration of health activity after the improvement of the situation caused by Covid-19, the need to collaborate and share knowledge is even more evident. Innovation is also presented as the fundamental challenge for the economies of countries and their actors. For this reason, one of the most outstanding facts and that make this day in a state benchmark is that he has gathered on the same stage at the employer of technology companies FENIN, the start-ups, companies in the hospital sector, research groups, and at scientific and professional society of biomedical engineers SEIB, who have collaborated to promote the creation of open ecosystems oriented the development of new processes, services, products and the public-private collaboration.

The day has had the participation of themost relevant hospital innovative ecosystem in the country. Carlos Sisternas, director of Fenin Catalunya, Ivan Planas, deputy director of the Catalan Health Service, and Lluís Blanch, director of the I3PT and current coordinator of ITEMAS, have inaugurated the Matchmaking. They have all agreed to emphasize the importance of foster innovation in the health sector to achieve an advanced and up-to-date healthcare system. “Innovation will allow us to face any situation with the maximum possible guarantees, therefore, it is necessary that we have a system and a stable environment with the minimum of possible obstacles ", pointed out Planas. The Deputy Director of the Catalan Health Service also emphasized the importance of public-private collaboration in the field of innovation.

For his part, Ramon Maspons, Director of Innovation of the Agency for Health Quality and Evaluation of Catalonia (AQuAS), Joan Martí, Director of Business Strategy in Action (Generalitat de Catalunya) and Antoni Maneu, Human Health Division in HIPRA, participants in the central debate of the event, have emphasized the need to improve investment in R & D & I, enhance the public-private collaboration and create a more stable and accessible environment for companies and startups.

“We have to do things differently and work on different schemes if we want to develop a leading and sustainable health system. We have no alternative. We need to make reforms, define a clear strategy, create different and more trust-based collaboration and contracting schemes, and have a framework for financial stability, ”said Maspons.

Experts have agreed that “the health sector is a strategic sector and is key to our country's economy, for that reason, it is necessary to bet clearly by this sector ”. In this sense, Maspons pointed out that the Next Generation funds were born to "promote the recovery and increase the resilience of the system" and will be key to go "towards greater funding for R & D and development of strategic value chains ”.

The matchmaking event also featured different spaces pitchings and bilateral meetings between participants. The aim of these spaces has been to highlight the multidisciplinary profiles that work in healthcare innovation and transfer, as well as to contact startups, companies and researchers to encourage future collaborations and encourage the creation of new companies and technology. reach the market. On behalf of I3PT, Dr. Jordi Gratacós presented his research group A8G2 - Inflammatory Joint Disease, Bone Metabolism and Systemic Autoimmune Diseases, and Dr. Juan F. Delgado de la Poza and Xavi Gallego presented Taby Diagnostics, spin -off created at the Institute.