Biocat seeks innovative health technology to accelerate time to patients
<p><strong>CRAASH Barcelona program is looking for healthtech projects from all over Europe</strong></p>
<p><strong>The deadline for applications is 16 March and the program will start in April</strong></p>
<p><strong>This EIT Health bootcamp is organized by Biocat in collaboration with CIMIT </strong></p>
Barcelona, January 21, 2020. Biocat has opened the call for applications to the second edition of CRAASH Barcelona, a 12-week acceleration program that helps research teams from 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 one of the bootcamp programs run by EIT Health. CRAASH Barcelona is looking for projects with cutting-edge technology (diagnostics, devices or e-/digital health) from research centers, research institutes or universities from all over Europe. The program, with a duration of 12 weeks, 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 (Barcelona and other important European cities).
CRAASH Barcelona supports research projects with a TRL 3-4 (proof of concept / proof of feasibility). Established companies can also apply if they are looking for an application in healthcare for their technology and/or searching/validating their business model. The selected teams will validate the problems and solutions for their products and how they fit the market in some of the best healthcare ecosystems in the USA (Boston) and Europe (Barcelona, and other European cities).
In the first phase of CRAASH Barcelona, teams will travel to Galway to kick off the program, then participate in various online training sessions over nine weeks and spend one week in Barcelona getting to know the BioRegion of Catalonia and doing intensive training to prepare to validate their project in markets in the US and Europe. The second phase of the program is an immersion in the Boston ecosystem to validate their business models, perfect their pitches, have personal interviews and take part in networking sessions. Finally, in the third phase of CRAASH Barcelona, teams will travel to various cities in Europe to validate their projects in foreign markets.
Experiences from previous participants
This is the 3rd edition of CRAASH Barcelona, a program started in 2018 that has emerged 18 projects since then. 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 projects emerged from CRAASH Barcelona are Luminate Medical, A device to end hair loss in chemotherapy; Fine Birth, a device which can diagnose in real time the false threatened preterm labor (PTL) cases with a low-cost test; Biel Smartgaze, a project to develop smart glasses using computer vision and virtual reality to improve visual perception for people with poor vision, making them more self-sufficient or iBreve, a portable device worn on the user’s bra that analyzes breathing patterns. The technology gives wearers immediate feedback to prevent stress from reaching dangerous levels.
About Biocat
Biocat is the organization that champions the healthcare and life sciences ecosystem in Catalonia working to transform science and technology into regional economic growth as well as social impact. Since 2008, Biocat has invested 13M+ euros in 450+ programs and activities, that have attracted near 24,000 participants, 2,600+ students and 1,500+ firms and organizations. In terms of business. 165+ projects have been accelerated and 300+ direct new jobs have been created.
In 2013, in order to increase the impact of these strategic activities, Biocat launched Moebio, its initiative for acceleration and innovation. Moebio is ranked as one of the top accelerators in Europe according to rankings by Digitalhealth.careers, Mobile World Capital or Tech EU.
CRAASH Barcelona is one of the flagship programs of Moebio, along with Design Health Barcelona (d·HEALTH Barcelona).
