8 March, 2017

Creation ADVANCE(CAT) (Advanced Therapies)

ADVANCE(CAT) CONSORTIUM IS LAUNCH TO PROMOTE ADVANCED THERAPIES IN CATALONIA

This collaboration is to facilitate the arrival of advanced therapies from preclinical stages up to industrial production and clinical application: this is the aim of a project accelerator ADVANCE(CAT) led by the University of Barcelona (UB) and Ferrer, consisting of eighteen and organizations in the fields of health sciences, including two universities, twelve institutes biomedical research and four private foundations and companies.

ADVANCE(CAT), which is integrated into the community NextHealth coordinated by Biocat, aims to create an organizational structure to accelerate the development of new drugs for advanced therapies, bringing together participants in both the public and private sectors for better management of resources in order to get the most out of the Catalan health system. The main areas of work are focused on enhancing cellular and tissue engineering, promoting gene therapy, including immunotherapy, and automate production to facilitate greater clinical application.

The project also aims to strengthen the Catalan industry promoting the identification of mechanisms and protocols that allow the production of these drugs. Also, this will encourage interaction between research centers and hospitals as well as businesses engaged in these types of therapies and will drive the rapid transition of these new medicines to the health system, which otherwise often require long periods of development.

The consortium has an initial budget of over 2.8 million EUR of which 969,352.28 EUR are financed by ACCIÓ (Agency for the competitiveness of the company, Government of Catalonia) and the European Union under the operational program ERDF (European Regional Development) Catalonia 2014-2020.