We are proud to be the winners of the Àlex Casta Awards First Edition. These awards are a joint initiative by the biomedical ecosystem in memory of Dr. Àlex Casta, a well-renowned professional in the Catalan healthcare and Life Sciences sector who sadly left us in December 2018 due to a fatal aortic dissection.

Aortyx was selected among twenty-eight projects according to their innovation, social impact and potential market by the Evaluation Committee. The selected five finalists, Aortyx amongst them, were invited to give a pitch presentation during the presentation of the BioRegion Report last September 28^th in Barcelona, and the event was highly followed in live streaming. Our CEO, Dr. Martorell, presented a very exciting five minutes’ pitch about Aortyx disruptive strategy of changing the paradigm of endovascular repair in aortic dissection.

Aortyx was ultimately selected as the winner of a fierce competition in which all the projects presented were exciting and innovative. We were extremely pleased to receive this award in the shape of a commemorative trophy and a free 1-year subscription to the CataloniaBio & HealthTech Association. Moreover, this trophy has given Aortyx a greater visibility in the communication channels of Genesis BioMed, as well as the prestige of being selected amongst the most successful, cutting-edge and innovative projects in the sector.

Aortyx follows Àlex Casta’s signature: individual and team effort, integrity, and passion. We will continue to endeavour our efforts to bring our strategy to the clinic, and hence have a greater impact in society, like Àlex Casta did. 

As the project evolves, the team does coherently.

Aortyx has added four members to the team: a Project Manager, two research scientists and an engineering intern.

Our new Project Manager is Dr. Verena Blume, a Biologist with vast experience in creating scientific contents and science communication to audiences with different backgrounds. She is in responsible for grants management and media communications.

Germán Febas joins the team as Research Scientist. Germán, soon-to-be PhD in Bioengineering, has significant experience in biomaterials and development of medical devices. As a specialist in electrospinning, he will support the team in all tasks related to patch and adhesive manufacturing.

Dr. Inés Moreno will join the team in September. Inés has extensive experience in tissue regeneration, tissue engineering and imaging. After two very successful post-docs at Max Planck and Queensland, she joins Aortyx as a Research Scientist to work on the biological response to our patches.

Francesc Canalejo is an Undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering who has performed a verysuccessful internship in the Engineering Department. He has rapidly integrated and contributed to optimising our deployment system. We hope he comes back after his Erasmus in Politecnico de Milano.

We are grateful for the labour developed by Idan Bar-Shay and Bruno Perales. We wish them the best in their coming career challenges!

The Spanish Government supports R&D companies and research centers through different programs within the Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica y Técnica y de Innovación 2017-2020.

Aortyx and IQS continue to partner in the development of our new generation of endovascular devices to treat aortic diseases. The Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación has granted more than 750k€ in a grant-loan combined funding scheme. The grant is a new demonstration of the project’s strength, relevance, and reputation within the Spanish ecosystem.

The grant will secure IP protection, results dissemination, regulatory progress and will support the addition of more staff to both IQS and Aortyx to continue delivering better solutions to aortic disease patients.

The Fundació Catalana per a la Recerca i la Innovació (FCRI) and 11 Catalan universities organize the competition “Explain your thesis in 4 minutes”. With the support of the Catalan Government, this event contributes both to promote research spreading and turn back science to society.

It is focused on PhD candidates who are challenged to explain their investigation to a general audience in a maximum time of 4 minutes with a plain vocabulary and easy to understand structure.

Noemí Balà, co-founder of Aortyx, presented her thesis “Disseny d'un dispositu mèdic pel tractament de les disseccions aòrtiques” won the Universitat Ramón Llull (URL) semifinal and represented the URL at the Final competition on June 25^th, 2020. Find the presentation here: 

The European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) launched Catapult, its flagship pitch competition and training program. Aortyx has been selected as one of the 14 medtech startups that will compete at the semi-final.

Catapult offers prizes to the winners of the competition, but also high-quality pitch and business training to facilitate access to international investors. We aim at using the training to win the competition and attract leading experts and international investors.

Bioabsorvable endovascular patch research project from Institut Químic de Sarrià (IQS) has been awarded with one of CaixaImpulse Consolidate grant among the 40 European research projects presented. This programme, promoted by the “La Caixa” Banking Foundation, drives the transformation of scientific knowledge into services, products, or businesses that create value in society. 

Our CEO, Dr. Martorell has led this project since 2015 at Vascular Engineering and Applied Biomedicine group at IQS. Along with the rest of the project’s core team: Dr. Riambau, Dr. Borrós, and our CTO Ms. Balà, they are focused is transferring innovative technology applied to vascular diseases.

CaixaImpulse Validate 2017 was cornerstone to transform this research project into a spin-off, Aortyx, so we expect CaixaImpulse Consolidate to be cornerstone to reach clinical stage. This recognition reinforces the research project’s strength and disruptive innovation solution for aortic diseases through the collaboration between IQS and Aortyx.

The 24 months’ fund will be assigned to Non-GLP development to reach design freeze before starting GLP development towards the clinical experimentation with the First in Human trials. Meanwhile, it will be need to secure funding IP costs and production.

CaixaImpulse Consolidate, which grants up to 300k€ and mentoring training, will help to continue to fix the patch commercialisation objective in 2024.

The first edition of “Claus per Emprendre en Tecnologies Mèdiques” took place in February at the IQS School of Engineering in Barcelona. Biocat and IQS Tech Factory joined efforts to create this 4-days course. It gathered experts and entrepreneurs experienced in medical technologies and digital health from all over Catalunya. The aim was to provide attendees the opportunity to learn how to build a medical or technological start-up. 

Noemí Balà, one of the co-founders of Aortyx, was invited to participate in the inaugural session. It was a great opportunity to overview new trends and market positioning, but more importantly how to go from clinical need and a technological idea to market and exit. The course, aimed at students and young researchers, presents the failures, successes, problems and satisfactions that entrepreneurs enjoy and suffer along their uncertain journey.

New year, new incorporation to our team! On January 8^th a new member was added to our crew. Idan Bar-Shay is the new preclinical and clinical manager at Aortyx. He is well experienced in adhering to clinical protocols, training medical staff, and helping to identify and monitor company’s needs. 

He studied at the University of Haifa from 2006 to 2009 a Bachelor of Biological Sciences, and then obtained the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (2010-2014) degree from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 

His work experience began as a Veterinary Technician in 2012. In 2016, he joined Boston Biomedical Associates in Israel, focused on clinical studies preparation, development and submission. He also implemented medical research methods for collecting high-quality quantitative and qualitative data. 

He came to Barcelona in 2018 to join Anaconda Biomed as a clinical specialist in Anaconda BioMed, where he was engaged in protocols, clinical staff training and investigation, before joining Aortyx. His background and experience make him an important addition to our team. We look forward for a successful venture.

Our most recent team member is Bruno Perales de Rocafiguera, a senior-year undergraduate in Mechanical Engineering who joined in March. He will be our intern for four months supporting the R&D engineering team, simulating and optimizing the behavior of our Nitinol deployer. We are happy to have him learning by our side and looking forward to his contribution.

Last but not least, Júlia López has accepted a new career opportunity and joined the project managing team at Oryzon Genomics. We wish her success in this new adventure!

Aortyx has been supported by the Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico Industrial (CDTI) through its NEOTEC program. The objective of this program supporting newborn technology-based companies, helping them with non-dilutive funds to continue developing their technology and adding value to their projects. Aortyx has been awarded the maximum funding amount, 250,000 €.

Aortyx increased its capital with a seed fund of 650,000 € led by Genesis Ventures. This seed round started in February 2019, initially aiming for 300,000 €. The excitemtent from the investors and the updated cash needs made our round the 14^th in Spain in 2019 and the highest without Venture Capitals nor Crowdfunding platforms.

Our CEO and co-founder, Jordi Martorell, states that achieving this round of funding is a recognition of the trust placed by our investors in our daily work and the main objective of Aortyx: saving lives. 

This capital raise has been key to start animal testing and to fix our commercialization objective in 2024. Likewise, we have already started the industrialization process of our prototype and put in motion our quality management system to comply with ISO 13485.

Learn more in the following links:

Aortyx amplía capital en 650.000 euros con una ronda liderada por Genesis Ventures

CATALUNYA.-Aortyx amplía capital en 650.000 euros con una ronda liderada por Genesis Ventures