2nd edition of CRAASH Barcelona kicks off
<p>The ten selected healthtech projects are having their first meeting with the mentors from CIMIT (Boston)</p>
The 2nd Edition of CRAASH Barcelona, the acceleration program Biocat organized in collaboration with CIMIT (Boston), kicked off this May at Payment Innovation Hub (Barcelona) with the first on-site meeting of expert mentors from CIMIT (Boston) and the ten projects selected to participate in the program. CRAASH Barcelona is part of the bootcamp programs run by EIT Health, the main European healthcare consortium.
Over two days, members of the participating teams had the chance to work and hold one-to-one meetings with the expert mentors from CIMIT (Boston), the most experienced health accelerator in the world. Over 15 years, CIMIT has successfully accelerated more than 600 healthtech projects, doubled the rate of successful commercialization and cut the time-to-next-phase by more than half.
One of the projects aspiring to follow on this path of success is NeedleSafe, technology from Universitat Pompeu Fabra able to avoid the risk of infections after biopsy procedures, based on electrically releasing silver ions from a silver coating on the biopsy needle. “CRAASH Barcelona is a great opportunity for assessing internationally the NeedleSafe technology, business model and acceptation in different markets,” explains Quim Castellví, head researcher at NeedleSafe.
British company Smart Flora has a similar goal for their personalised plans for diet and nutritional supplements delivered through a mobile app to alleviate patients’ intestinal discomfort: “We think CRAASH Barcelona can really help us to find our customer target market and really optimize the product towards our target customer”, explains Shannon Doyle, founder of Smart Flora.
"The program will help us reaffirm our development plan and business model, as well as establishing a network of contacts not only in Catalonia but also in other countries, like France, the Netherlands and, above all, the United States," adds Rubén Molina, CEO of Innitius, the company that develops a device which can diagnose in real time the false threatened preterm labor (PTL) cases with a low-cost test.
Coinciding with this meeting, John M. Collins, COO and Technology Implementation director at CIMIT, gave a talk open to the sector presenting GAITS, the key tool they have developed to foster healthcare innovation. Plus, Biel Glasses, ABLE Human Motion and iBreve, participants in the first edition of CRAASH Barcelona, explained their experience in the program.
From Barcelona to Boston
CRAASH Barcelona is an intensive 12-week program divided into three phases. The first phase (May to July) will allow teams to validate whether their technology can cover a real need and find a place on the market. After the kick-off at Barcelona, teams will work with experts from CIMIT in Boston through virtual meetings.
The second phase of CRAASH Barcelona will allow teams to validate their project in two other European markets, France and the Netherlands, through visits to the Medicen (Paris) and Yesdelft! (Delft) ecosystems in September and October.
Finally, some of the CRAASH Barcelona teams will also be able to network and validate their projects in the Boston ecosystem, which is one of the most important in the healthcare sector. They will pitch their projects in November to the Boston ecosystem.