BREATHE

AstraZeneca is a global, innovation-driven biopharmaceutical business that focuses on the discovery, development and commercialisation of prescription medicines. They continue to be an integral part of the scientific community in the UK, employing more than 2,600 employees in the UK focused on high value R&D activities. This is backed up by significant R&D investment. Spain is one of the countries with the greatest contribution to AstraZeneca's research activity at a global level and where we have close to 1,000 employees and 224 people dedicated to R&D. The research strategy in Spain, focused on a collaborative model with local institutions, is oriented towards three main lines: the promotion of basic and preclinical research, the participation of Spanish researchers and centers in all international clinical trials, and support for initiatives promoted by independent researchers. The company had 379 clinical studies running in 2022, including clinical trials (232), observational studies (112) and preclinical studies (35), being one of the most active countries in the world in clinical research within AstraZeneca. Among clinical trials, 63% are focused in Oncology, 26% in Biopharma and 11% in Rare Diseases, with a total of almost 12,500 patients involved in Spanish hospitals.

The Centro Hospitalar e Universitário de Coimbra (CHUC) is the biggest Portuguese hospital having a comprehensive research, teaching and patient-centred care approach. Our mission is to deliver high-quality clinical care in a context of pre and postgraduate training with a strong focus on research, scientific knowledge and innovation. The hospital offers comprehensive care across all the leading medical and surgical specialties. CHUC´s excellence centres ensure high standard healthcare services. (e.g. between 1992 and 2014 CHUC performed 1,114 liver transplants). It is the medical institution in Portugal with more accredited reference centres. Key healthcare figures : 1,848 acute beds 7,289 professionals 896,239 medical consultations 41,533 surgical patients 61,816 inpatients 282,919 emergency cases 146 ongoing clinical trials 1,408 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals (SCI) (2012-2014)

The Fundació de Recerca Clínic Barcelona-Institut d’Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer (IDIBAPS) is a public research centre dedicated to biomedical research, founded in 1996 to broaden the clinical research of the Hospital Clinic de Barcelona (HCB). With >1,500 original articles and >2,500 publications annually, IDIBAPS is one of the leading biomedical research centres in Spain driving forward original multidisciplinary biomedical research on multiple diseases affecting our society, with the mission to translate “knowledge into cure”. The broad vision of IDIBAPS Strategic Plan is to improve the health and quality of life of citizens through high impact research and collaborations, at the highest level of scientific integrity, public accountability, and social responsibility. The close interaction of 100 clinical and laboratory research groups, composed by more than 460 Principal Investigators, drives forward original translational and multidisciplinary research oriented to solve relevant biological and clinical questions for human health. The researchers have access to novel and first-class infrastructures available together with six own core facilities offering a wide range of services under strict quality management controls performed at all levels. The institution has also a strong track record working in European projects (e.g. 90 projects obtained along H2020 and 36 in Horizon Europe) and has a dedicated European Projects Office (OPE) and the Knowledge and Technology Transfer Office (KTT).

GENESIS Biomed is a consultancy firm in the biomedical healthcare sector specialized in providing consulting services to spin-off and start-up companies, entrepreneurs and research centers. Based in our expertise we help entrepreneurs and researchers to shape their business plan and we support them in the private fundraising process. We have worked on 253 projects of 15 different types and we have raised more than 67.5 M€ in the last 6 years. Our expertise domains are biopharmaceutical, biotechnological, medical devices, in vitro diagnostic, digital health nutraceutical and cosmetic. With more than 20 years of expertise in the healthcare sector, we are born in May 2017 and we are located in the Barcelona Science Park and in the center of Madrid.

Hospital Clinic of Barcelona (HCB), founded in 1906, is a university hospital with 4,500 professionals covering most of medical and surgical specialties. It belongs to the Catalan Public Hospital Network and it is both a high-complexity tertiary hospital and a community hospital providing services to more than half million citizens. HCB is placed in Spain in a top position in the areas of research and innovation (e.g. top participant in Societal Challenge 1-Health in H2020).

University of Coimbra (UC) is a reference in higher education and R&D in Portugal, due to the quality of the courses taught at its eight colleges and to the advances achieved in pure and applied research in various scientific domains and on technology related areas. The offer in technological research makes UC an undeniable reference in R&D in Portugal, which highlights the excellence of work developed by the R&D units of UC, namely in the fields of life sciences. UC offers advanced entrepreneurship education trainings programs in different areas that bind to technology, where it was considered by EC as one of the 20 most inspiring cases in Europe. UC stands out also on technology transfer being involved in the promotion of several successful initiatives, like IPN Incubator, TECBis- Business accelerator unit, Biocant, and in the creation of more than 200 technological spin-offs, the majority of them healthcare related businessess. UC U-Multirank scored “very good” (the maximum classification) on Research, Technology Transfer and Internationalisation.