The health innovation ecosystem of Catalonia strengthens its international positioning at 4YFN

For the second consecutive year, the key players in Catalonia’s health innovation ecosystem (entities, business associations, and organizations) are joining forces at 4YFN to enhance the sector’s international projection. This collaboration comes at a crucial time, as the congress strengthens its commitment to digital health with an official program dedicated to digital health and an exclusive exhibition space in Hall 8.0, adjacent to the Mobile World Congress 2025.

The Catalonia Health Innovation Ecosystem Pavilion, led by The Catalonia Health Innovation Ecosystem Pavilion, led by Biocat and the Fundació TIC Salut Social, is supported by the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Barcelona City Council, ACCIÓ, the Agència de Qualitat i Avaluació Sanitàries de Catalunya (AQuAS), Servei Català de la Salut (CatSalut), Institut Català de la Salut (ICS), La Unió - Associació d’Entitats Sanitàries i Socials (UCH), Consorci de Salut i Social de Catalunya (CSC), Associació Catalana d’Entitats de Salut (ACES), Associació Catalana de Recursos Assistencials (ACRA), and the Taula d’entitats del Tercer Sector Social de Catalunya (m4Social). 

Additionally, as a new feature this year, the pavilion will also include Barcelona Health Hub, Catalonia.Health, and Tech Barcelona, expanding the representation of Catalonia’s health innovation ecosystem. This strategic alliance further strengthens the sector’s position as an international benchmark in healthcare innovation and digitalization.

Throughout the event, the space will host more than 20 activities focused on the sector’s future challenges and how to leverage the great potential of digital healthto improve healthcare, diagnostics, and treatments. A wide range of roundtables and sessions with healthcare professionals will address topics such as modernizing healthcare center management, digital empowerment of citizens, and the new social innovation service for care, among others.

Additionally, this year the space will feature 16 digital health startups —four more than last year—presenting their innovative solutions in various pitch sessions, showcasing new developments, advancements, and key milestones achieved over the past year. These companies include: Aimentia, Aurax, BrainFocus, DevsHealth, Doctomatic, Heecap, IOMED, Llamalítica, Loop Diagnostics, MiWEndo Solutions,  Point Pressure, Sycai Medical, Tailor Surgery, Tensor Medical, The Smart Lollipop i WIVI Vision.

During this morning’s press conference, Biocat and the Fundació TIC Salut Social highlighted the importance of this event as a platform to showcase innovations that are transforming the healthcare sector in Catalonia and worldwide.

Nearly 85 startups and health-related entities will be present at this eleventh edition of 4YFN, a record number representing a 20% increase compared to the previous year. This solidifies the healthcare sector as one of the most prominent at the congress.

According to Robert Fabregat, General Director of Biocat: "4YFN is the largest showcase for innovative digital health solutions and highlights the need to accelerate the development and adoption of the most strategic and priority innovations for the system. Innovations capable of transforming it, making it more resilient, improving public health and well-being, while also driving social and economic progress. To achieve this, strengthening collaboration among all sector players is essential."

Joan Guanyabens, General Director of the Fundació TIC Salut Social, emphasized: "The success of the immense potential of the health and social well-being ecosystem relies on collaboration and networked work, which are key to accelerating system transformation. The program presented at 4YFN is a clear example of how technology can improve healthcare, enabling more precise and personalized care."

Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare: A Strategic Commitment for Catalonia

Catalonia continues to establish itself as a leader in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) tools applied to healthcare, with 155 companies (112 startups and scaleups) operating in this sector and an investment that continues to grow exponentially.

According to the 2024 BioRegion Report AI-driven startups and scaleups in healthcare have secured 51% of the total funding raised by health companies in Catalonia in 2024, reaching €347 million. In total, these companies have obtained €176.4 million in funding, with 95.5% coming from venture capital.

These 112 AI-focused startups and scaleups represent 24% of the 470 active companies in the BioRegion, marking a 32% increase compared to 2023. Of these, 57% are digital health companies. Additionally, during this period, there has been a 26% increase in the number of companies founded by women, further consolidating female leadership in the life sciences and health sector.

AI-driven healthcare companies in Catalonia are driving innovation in fields such as personalized medicine, telemedicine, big data, and medical imaging, applying technological solutions that directly enhance healthcare services. In terms of therapeutic areas, central nervous system diseases and oncology are the most active fields with high growth potential, standing out as key innovation hubs for sector companies.

This innovation is also reflected in the growing implementation of AI tools in hospitals and primary care, with a total of 168 registered tools, 58% of which are in advanced deployment stages, according to data from the AI in Health Observatory, as reported in the same study. Hospitals are the primary environment for the implementation of artificial intelligence solutions in this sector, with 83% of Catalan centers utilizing them, and a growing presence in primary care, where they are already applied in 41% of centers.

In this regard, Sandra García-Armesto, Director of AQuAS, stated: "The vast diversity of digital solutions that will be available on the market makes their evaluation essential for making the best decisions and ensuring the greatest beneficial impact on public health. In this context, AI represents both an opportunity and a challenge for healthcare systems. The evaluation of these technologies must support decision-making and address emerging healthcare needs."

Description of the 16 digital health startups at the pavillion

1. Aimentia: a digital health startup that specializes in using artificial intelligence for mental health. They aim to improve access to and quality of psychological and psychiatric treatments using technological solutions that give professionals more precise, personalized diagnostic tools.
2. Aurax: a company that has created SISON, an innovative, unique remote-control device that goes in the mouth and can be used to control a wide variety of devices handsfree over Bluetooth.  
3. BrainFocus: this  digital health firm is developing software solutions to help neurologists better treat patients with drug resistant epilepsy (DRE), a condition that affects 15 million people worldwide.
4. DevsHealth: a deeptech company helping improve drug development for infectious diseases in order to accelerate development of anti-infectives, making the process faster, cheaper and safer. 
5. Doctomatic: a digital health firm that uses artificial intelligence to transform photos from medical devices like pulse oximeters, blood pressure monitors and digital thermometers into useful data that healthcare professionals can view in a dashboard. If any of the values are outside the normal range, the system sends an alert so doctors can act quickly.
6. Heecap: a company that is developing a medical device to improve respiratory capacity for patients on mechanical ventilation in intensive care units. 
7. IOMED: a digital company that facilitates access and secure transfer of health data between users and data subjects within the legal framework of the European Union. Their platform is based on artificial intelligence and provides data spaces for secure, compliant processing and secondary use of clinical data. 
8. Llamalítica: a digital health firm that uses a generative artificial intelligence platform to improve management of medical data, simplifying administrative tasks and saving both doctors and patients time. 
9. Loop Diagnostics: a medical technology startup that is developing quick, precise diagnostic tools for bacterial blood infections, focusing mainly on early detection of sepsis. 
10. MiWEndo Solutions: a medical technology company that is working to improve early detection of colorectal cancer, one of the main causes of death worldwide. 
11. Point Pressure: a medtech company that is developing a portable device to improve lower limb movement for people with pathologies or injuries involving the central nervous system. 
12. Sycai Medical: an innovative company that has developed software for early diagnosis of abdominal cancer, focusing mainly on pancreatic, liver and kidney cancer. 
13. Tailor Surgery: a medtech company that designs and markets digital surgery solutions for orthopedics, including personalized surgical guides printed in 3D, as well as custom titanium prostheses and implants. 
14. Tensor Medical: a digital health firm that is developing radiology imaging biomarkers with artificial intelligence to diagnose and monitor neurodegenerative diseases. 
15. The Smart Lollipop: a medical device that uses smart candy to diagnose diseases from a saliva sample. The lollipop collects the sample and cleans it for diagnostic testing or to follow up on pathologies.
16. WIVI Vision: a digital health firm that has developed a solution that can assess and train each patient’s visual skills, completely reworked to focus on visual wellbeing.