Spin off companies

Although this is by no means expected from ICREA researchers, it so happens that sometimes they hit on something that shows promise of becoming a powerful new technology, but it seems impossible to develop that further without significant investment of time and money. In these cases, many choose to explore the option of creating a spin-off company dedicated to the concept.

List of spin off companies

  • EODYNE

    Supported by the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) and ICREA.
    Entrepreneur: ICREA Research Professor Paul Verschure.
    Born in November 2014.

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    EODYNE

    Eodyne Systems SL, a spin-off company from the research group SPECS (Synthetic, Perceptive, Emotive and Cognitive Systems) of the Center of Autonomous Systems and Neurorobotics (nras. upf.edu) at UPF, is launched to address one of the main health challenges our society is facing: functional recovery after brain damage which affects about 60 million people worldwide. Eodyne Systems SL will be commercializing a novel virtual reality based approach towards brain recovery and health, called the Rehabilitation Gaming System (RGS). RGS is based on the basic research performed by SPECS on the principles governing mind and brain and validated in collaboration with its clinical partners. After successfully treating about 400 patients at different stages of recovery after stroke and publishing the results in leading scientific journals and conferences, RGS is ready to be used by society. To achieve maximal distribution a commercial route is provided through the Eodyne Systems SL business strategy.

    The partners of Eodyne Systems SL are Professor Dr. Paul F.M.J. Verschure, director of SPECS Research Lab and the inventor of RGS,  Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF), the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) and Carmen Buisan, Senior project manager at SPECS.

    Eodyne’s flagship product, RGS, is a novel science-based solution for the integrated treatment of deficits that can result from stroke. RGS provides the global healthcare market with:

     

    * A low-cost tool for the neurorehabilitation of deficits in motor, affective, cognitive and linguistic capabilities due to brain damage

    * Applicability at all phases of treatment: acute and sub-acute (hospital or rehabilitation clinic) and chronic (home or health centre)

    * The active engagement of the patients in their rehabilitation following a personalized treatment approach

    * A system that empowers the patients and their social environment in the management of their own well being, customizing treatment to their means and lifestyle

    * An integrated system for remote treatment, diagnostics, monitoring and advise, allowing savings for patients and their relatives, primary healthcare providers, health centers and insurance companies

    * A life-long learning approach towards physical and mental health

    * A scientifically grounded state of the art ICT, artificial intelligence and virtual reality system that brings serious gaming to a qualitatively new level of deployment by integrating it with clinically validated methods and integrated solutions for diagnostic, monitoring and guidance.

    www.eodyne.com 

  • FUELIUM

    Supported by the Institut de Microelectrònica de Barcelona (IMB-CNM-CSIC) and ICREA.
    Entrepreneur: ICREA Research Professor Neus Sabaté.
    Born in July 2016. 

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    FUELIUM SL develops ecofriendly and single use paper batteries that are able to deliver electrical power to a wide variety of portable devices. The mission of the company is to provide a clean and efficient alternative to conventional button cells.

    FUELIUM batteries are made of paper, carbon and small quantities of non-toxic metals and can be fabricated with low-cost reel-to-reel processes. They are activated by the addition of a single drop of an aqueous liquid: water, urine, plasma/serum, saliva, etc…and can deliver power in the range of miliwatts for several hours. These features make them particularly suitable to power in-vitro diagnostics applications (IVD). The company aims to cover the IVD needs by providing power to digital tests in sectors like woman health monitoring, infectious diseases, drugs of abuse, food analysis or environmental control.

    Compared to their competitors, FUELIUM batteries can be tailored to deliver the energy required by a particular application, they do not generate any harmful or toxic waste – what allows them to be disposed in domestic bins without the need of any recycling procedure - and they reduce manufacturing and integration costs of the devices that require power on-board.

    FUELIUM was founded in 2015 due to the know-how accumulated by the Microfuel cells research group led by Prof. Neus Sabaté at the Institut de Microelectrònica de Barcelona (IMB-CNM-CSIC) and the CSIC patent that protects the technology was licensed to the company in 2016. 

  • INBIOMOTION

    Supported by the Institut the Recerca Biomèdica (IRB Barcelona) and ICREA.
    Entrepreneur: ICREA Research Professor Roger Gomis.
    Born in March 2011. 

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    INBIOMOTION

    Inbiomotion is a personalized medicine company based in Barcelona. It develops biomarkers that predict bone metastasis to improve cancer patients’ quality of life.  

    Inbiomotion’s unique diagnostic assay is based on a highly selective single gene biomarker. It can predict at an early stage a patient’s risk of bone-specific metastases from primary tumors. The selectivity of the lead biomarker has the potential to advance the clinical standard of care using personalized medicine.

  • Logo InBrain
    INBRAIN NEUROELECTRONICS

    Supported by the Institut Català de Nanociència i Nanotecnologia (ICN2) and ICREA.
    Entrepreneur: ICREA Research Professor José Antonio Garrido.
    Born in December 2019.

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    INBRAIN NEUROELECTRONICS

    INBRAIN Neuroelectronics is a spin-off company of the Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2) and ICREA. It was established in 2019, at the intersection between MedTech, DeepTech and Digital Health, with a mission to decode brain signals to devise medical solutions for patients with epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease and other neurological disorders. The company designs small implantable brain intelligent systems, with the ability to interpret brain signals with unprecedented high fidelity, producing a therapeutic response adapted to the clinical condition of each specific patient. INBRAIN technology is based on graphene neural interfaces with the capability of reading brain activity at a very high resolution, as well as detecting therapy-specific biomarkers and triggering highly focal adaptive neuromodulation.

  • INNOVEX THERAPEUTICS

    Supported by ICREA, ISGlobal/CRESIB and IGTP.
    Entrepreneur: ICREA Research Professor Hernando A. del Portillo.
    Born in March 2014.

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    INNOVEX THERAPEUTICS

    INNOVEX THERAPEUTICS SL is the first Spanish spin-off company devoted to develop Exosomes as new platform for vaccines and diagnostic tools. Cornerstone of the spin-off is the discovery that reticulocyte-derived exosomes (rex) from malaria infections could be used as a new platform and vaccine against this disease. This approach is internationally protected (PCT/ EP2010/070800). Exosomes are 30-100 nm vesicles formed by endocytosis of segments of the plasma membrane. The internalized segment generates multivesicular bodies (MVBs) containing small vesicles that are released as exosomes following fusion of the MVBs with the plasma membrane. The company offers a new proprietary and flexible technological platform based on exosomes for the design, formulation and production of new vaccines and diagnostics. INNOVEX THERAPEUTICS SL was created in March 2014 by Hernando A. del Portillo and Francesc E. Borrás, with an accionary participation of three Research Institutions: ICREA, CRESIB and IGTP. Presently, it consists of two senior researchers, one junior researcher and one technician. The Scientific Advisory board is formed by Drs. Clotilde Théry (Institut Curie, France), Bernd Giebel (University Hospital Essen, Germany), Javier Martínez-Picado (ICREA at IRSICaixa) and Professor Hermann Bujard (University of Heidelberg, Germany). The management consultant is Dr. Carlos de Lecea (Lemus Buhils SL).

    INNOVEX THERAPEUTICS SL´s objective is to contribute to a better health through the development and commercialization of exosomes as new vaccine platforms and diagnostic tools for human and animal health. The company includes in its portfolio balanced projects and takes into consideration that they are not presently covered by the market, the size of the business opportunity, their target amplitude of use, chronicity of the products and competitive price positioning in each segment. Our strategy is to develop three commercialized products within the next three years, when the company expects to have a return of investment. The business plan is adapted to regulatory guidelines of the different products to avoid delay in its economic objectives, and foresees that investments in early studies not only become rapidly profitable but that they also serve as the basis for regulatory applications of the most complex products. The company has obtained free laboratory space for the next three years at IGTP – Campus Can Ruti, where it is presently operating. In addition, the
    company has received a first investment for developing a Proof-of-Concept of a new vaccine and is actually and actively seeking
    new investors. Transfer of the patent to the company was only possible through the generous and “example-to-follow” attitude of the four Institutions originally owning it: ICREA, CRESIB, Fundació Clínic and Fundació Privada CELLEX, which fully and legally supported this transfer.