At the CRG, I am part of the Technology and Business Development Office (TBDO) at the centre. Our office manages the protection and commercialization of the research outputs, and we are tasked with building the entrepreneurial culture at the institute. As part of this, we are the office of reference for building connections with the private sector. I was hired in February 2023, as Industry and Innovation Manager, to work on this specific area with the aim to facilitate more networking opportunities between the institutes scientists and outside industry. This, with the longer-term goal of building research collaborations, and other partnerships, in the life science space. Development of such relationships has been a strategic goal of the CRG in it’s current strategic plan (ending at the end of 2024), with the mission to support innovation, translational research and entrepreneurship at the institute. In the past few years, we have begun to execute various projects and partnerships with industry. For example, we have begun to perform Sponsored Research (with Almirall and Sirion Biotech) and Master Service Agreements (with Eli Lilly Spain), amongst others, helping us to build a portfolio of examples of our capacity to collaborate on projects of industrial relevance. In 2023, CRG received 1.26M€ funding from public Spanish grants - Proyectos en CPP 2023 of the AEI and the Actuación Conjunta ISCIII-CDTI de Innovaciones en Medicina Personalizada y Terapias Avanzadas - aimed at bringing together academic institutions and the private sector. These collaborations – with Oryzon Genomics, Almirall and Connecta Therapeutics – are aimed to investigate disease biology and study the pharmacology and effectiveness of certain drugs. This emphasises the impact of the CRG scientists in developing medicines and provides economic resources for our institute. However, despite this success, to date our efforts have been somewhat individual, taking advantage of discrete opportunities without a more global, branded initiative in place. Going forward, we are considering plans to utilise our growing network to establish an industry programme or consortium around the CRG. In pursuit of this, we have been engaging in two already established cases: the EMBL-EBI Industry Programme (which held it’s Tissue biology and disease modelling workshop at EMBL-BCN/CRG, in October 2023) and the MTI. In 2017, we became an affiliate institute of the MTI, along with 15 other research institutes from around the world (including IRB and CNIO). This does not mean we are part of the MTC but it allows the CRG community to access the annual symposium and themed events free-of charge; excellent spaces for networking with the various representatives of affiliated biotech companies and the pharma companies which make up the MTC. This year’s MTS was composed of exhibition and networking sessions, closed partnering meetings and several talks from industry leaders throughout the day. As part of the closed partnering meetings, I held a meeting with Ferring Pharmaceuticals Associate Director of External Innovation, regarding potential collaboration in areas of the microbiome and fertility. Despite not yet identifying a specific area of synergy, these contacts are highly valuable for CRG and are recorded in our CRM for future use and engagement. I also took the opportunity to connect with the Partnerships and Alliance team of the Milner and was able to introduce myself to it’s Head, Alison Schuldt. Following this introduction, I would like to keep in semi-regular contact to explore how CRG can benefit more from its affiliate member status - I already held a first follow up call in August to discuss, in more depth, the structure and organization of the MTI. I took certain key learnings from this event, and the follow up with Alison, crucial for future planning of any similar initiative at CRG. These include the need for: (i) a clear thematic mission and scope (i) regular, varied events as well as an annual symposium to stimulate interaction throughout the year and (iii) an innovation or advisory board to guide the agenda and strategy. But, more than anything, it was the demonstration that these recurrent communities facilitate the greatest collaboration between academia and industry; confirming that replicating such an example at CRG could be an extremely added-value initiative in the mission to collaborate further with industry. In summary, attendance at this event allowed access to key contacts in external innovation at pharma companies and provides a benchmark for designing similar initiatives, adapted to the CRG.

The commitment on the part of the center will be, in addition to the corresponding report, to present to the Transfer Community:  



• Explanation of the operation of the Cambridge hub: Organization, Resources and Stakeholders.

• Model and Organization of the MTC/MTI: Explanation of the public-private partnership model

• Articulation of a Value Proposition to other CERCA centers for a similar “local” proposal