Biocat seeks healthtech innovation projects for third edition of CRAASH Barcelona
<p>The deadline for applications for this EIT Health bootcamp is 16 March</p>
Biocat has opened the call for applications to the second edition of CRAASH Barcelona, a 12-week acceleration program that helps research teams from Catalonia and other European countries successfully launch innovation to market in the healthtech arena. The deadline for applications is 16 March in www.craashbarcelona.org. CRAASH Barcelona is organized by Biocat in collaboration with CIMIT and is part of the bootcamp program run by EIT Health, the main European healthcare consortium.
The program is looking for projects with cutting-edge technology (diagnostics, devices or e-/digital health) from research centers, research institutes or universities in the BioRegion of Catalonia and from all over Europe. CRAASH Barcelona is open to research projects in the proof-of-concept or proof-of-feasibility phase. Established companies may also apply if they are looking for an application for their technology and/or searching for/validating a business model. The program is free of charge, equity free and offers teams up to €10,000 to cover travel expenses.
During the program, participants will be guided by expert mentors from CIMIT (Boston), the most experienced healthcare accelerator in the world. Over 20 years, CIMIT has successfully accelerated more than 600 healthtech projects. Some of the teams participating in CRAASH Barcelona will get the chance to validate their project in some of the best health ecosystems in USA (Boston) and Europe 8Barcelona and other important European cities).
CRAASH Barcelona has partnerships with Institut Català de la Salut, NIU Galway and Medicen (París), and BCN Tech City and Movistar Centre are the event partners.
Participants experience
This is the 3rd edition of CRAASH Barcelona, which was first held in 2018 and has accelerated 18 projects so far. One of them is ABLE Human Motion, a lightweight exoskeleton for people with lower-limb paralysis that restores their ability to walk.
"CRAASH Barcelona helped us to mature the project in a very short time. -explains Alfonso Carnicero, cofounder of ABLE-. We did more than 100 interviews with all the stakeholders involved with our product (patients, medical doctors, physical therapists and orthopedists), understanding their needs to better develop the exoskeleton and build a compelling value proposition for each one In addition, throughout the program we were able to receive advice from mentors, people with experience in the sector who can help in various fields as regulatory, business models or finance. This has allowed us to develop the project and at the end of the program we closed a funding round, we have evolved the technology of our ABLE exoskeleton for paraplegia (it has been tested by 10 different patients already) and this year we will start a multicenter clinical validation.”
Other innovative project emerged from CRAASH Barcelona is Flomics. “It helped us understanding the market we were entering, to identify all the players and to define the needed value proposition for each one of them. Within the project we completely changed our positioning. It also gave us contacts that are real enablers in the field. Everything together we believed we are one step closer to success”, explains João Curado, founder of Flomics.
The deadline for applications to the 3rd edition of CRAASH Barcelona is 16 March.