The health sector is a rising sector. Investment in health start-ups in Catalonia doubles in just two years, to over €200 million in 2020, and Barcelona has climbed to fifth place in Europe in rounds of investment in digital health. This is shown by the data collected in the BioRegion  of Catalonia Life Sciences and Healthcare Outlook 2020, by CataloniaBio & HealthTech and Biocat, which has motivated a series of special articles to give visibility to some of the projects that are representative of the strengths of the Catalan sector.

One of the keys to success is the previous innovative ecosystem, as highlighted by Judit Anido, CEO of CataloniaBio & HealthTech, in the first  article in the series of the newspaper El Punt Avui, which describes the current state of the sector.

In the rest of the articles, published during this past August, they focus on innovations developed in the Catalan environment where CataloniaBio & HealthTech members stand out. This is the case of Avinent, which manufactures customized implants for patients and is developing advanced research in the field of bioimpression. The company Xenopat uses mice to implant a small fragment of a patient's tumor to be able to personalize the treatment, while also anticipating possible complications; and they work together with pharmaceutical companies to help them develop new drugs. Despite the pandemic, the GlyCardial team has carried out a clinical study in ten hospitals, for the development of a new blood biomarker for the early detection of cardiac ischemia.

Chemotargets’ software reduces time and costs in developing new drugs, it anticipates which molecules are most interesting to continue exploring and their safety level. Oxolife is developing the first drug to treat female infertility by improving the endometrium to facilitate the embryo to implant in the uterus. The Onalabs device monitors, in a non-invasive and continuous way, the lactate levels of athletes. And Peptomyc's pioneering path in the development of a drug that inhibits a basic protein for the uncontrolled proliferation of cancer cells.