ALBA Synchrotron
Collaboration between companies and universities in the biopharmaceutical sector was the main topic of the last Hub b30 Innovation Brunch that brought together pharmaceutical companies and researchers to discuss trends in the biopharmaceutical field, based on the case of collaboration between Kymos and the UAB to promote an Industrial Doctorate on biosimilar drugs.
Cerdanyola del Vallès, 19th December 2019
. On November 29, the ALBA Synchrotron hosted the Innovation Brunch Hub b30 on biopharmaceutical production. Moderated by Jaime Vives, General Manager of Roche Diagnostics Spain, the session began with the presentation of an Industrial Doctorate project that aims to develop a tool to predict the biosimilarity of a drug. This research is being carried out by doctoral student Adrián Urbano, in collaboration with Kymos Pharma Services and the Department of Pharmacology, Therapeutics and Toxicology at the UAB.
According to Joan Puig de Dou, director of the company, "the biotechnology sector is a growing industry in our country and Catalonia has a very favorable ecosystem to be leaders in it". Puig de Dou emphasized the advantages of developing projects with the University, as in the case of Industrial Doctorate, to promote innovation in this area. Although they have encountered the challenge of aligning the need for a company to create a product to market and the university's goal of producing an innovative thesis.
For his part, Adrian Urbano explained his project and the benefits it has brought him to be able to carry it out within a company. The aim of their research is to develop a tool to anticipate the degree of molecular and functional analogy between the biosimilar candidate and the original reference biological product. "The Industrial Doctorate has allowed me to gain professional experience within a company and to learn, for example, how to interact with clients or what demands are required by regulatory agencies."
In this regard, Ivan Martínez, UAB's Vice President for Research, emphasized the importance of creating collaborative spaces between all the players in a sector in order to seek opportunities together.
The debate between all the participants involved, on the one hand, how to align the needs of the pharmaceutical industry with university research, and on the other, what trends and challenges this sector faces. And Catalonia has a large number of pharmaceutical companies, which are increasingly incorporating biosimilars in their technology portfolio.
One of the needs highlighted by the attendees is the importance of having quality scientific and technical services companies and the availability of cutting-edge research facilities, such as the ALBA Synchrotron.