Last March was held the inaugural meeting of the XarSMART project, an initiative that aims to promote the generation of medical technologies and new companies for the Catalan ecosystem of life sciences and health. Coordinated by IDIBELL and with the financial support of AGAUR, XarSMART is formed by 13 institutions, 30 research groups and 345 researchers.
The research group in Neurodegeneration and Neuroinflammation of IDIBGI, led by Dr. Lluís Ramió i Torrentà, head of the Neurology Service of the Trueta and Santa Caterina Hospitals, has joined the XarSMART initiative. "We are part of the initiative because we want our research in eHealth and new technologies applied to neurodegenerative diseases to be transferred as quickly as possible to our clinical practice, and to improve healthcare and the quality of life of people and their families," says Dr. Ramió.
XarSMART aims to increase the transferability of high-demand projects in the market, with rapid development times, to achieve an immediate impact on the ecosystem and the public. The initiative offers projects quick and easy access to experts in regulatory, eHealth, data science or precision medicine, without the need to hire consultancy sessions for each need.
To facilitate the search for funding, XarSMART will have its own platform for automatic search and classification of grants from which research groups will receive personalised information. In addition, the initiative also includes an Industry Council, made up of experts in innovation, who will provide advice and support to researchers.
The 13 institutions present in the XarSMART network, each with between 1 and 10 research groups, are: IDIBELL, IDIBGI, Consorci Sanitari Integral, Eurecat, IDIAP, Hospital de Bellvitge, ICO, IISPV, Fundació Universitària del Bages, IRB Lleida, Hospital de Sant Pau, Sant Joan de Déu, Universitat de Barcelona and Althaia.
The first meeting of this network was held at the Hotel Porta Fira in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat.
