The ”la Caixa” Foundation supports a project to develop new drugs to reduce pain in which researchers from the ibs.GRANADA participate
The CaixaResearch Consolidate 2022 call has selected three biomedical innovation projects with potential, which will be awarded 300.000 euros each in order to help their innovations be commercialized and reach society
In addition to financial support, the researchers chosen in this call that promotes the transfer of knowledge and technologies in the field of biomedicine and health will have personalized mentoring activities and expert support
The ”la Caixa” Foundation develops this aid program in collaboration with Caixa Capital Risc
The ”la Caixa” Foundation has awarded three new grants for cutting-edge biomedical innovation projects within the framework of the CaixaResearch Consolidate call. The final objective of CaixaResearch Consolidate is to support mature projects such as those selected so that they can take the step of going from the laboratory to the market and to society, creating new companies or solutions based on research and thus improving the health and quality of life of people.
In this year's call, those chosen are a project of the Rovira i Virgili University (URV) in consortium with researchers from the Institut d'Investigació Sanitària Pere Virgili (IISPV), to create new medical devices that improve the monitoring of brain electrical signals in neonates and adults; one from the Fundació Bosch i Gimpera, from the University of Barcelona, in consortium with researchers from the University of Granada and the University of Catania to develop new drugs that reduce pain, and one from the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP ) developing a new immunotherapy based on a monoclonal antibody for the treatment of cancer.
These projects will receive financial aid of 300.000 euros each for their development in the next two years. The aid will go to fields such as the technological development of the asset, studies for regulatory approval, the hiring of personnel or the management of intellectual property, among others.
In addition, its researchers will receive personalized mentoring support and will have other support activities such as expert advice in defining their development and commercialization plans.
Since 2015, the ”la Caixa” Foundation has allocated 18 million euros to 173 innovative projects between the CaixaResearch Validate calls, for innovations in earlier stages, and CaixaResearch Consolidate. The projects have generated an additional investment of more than 10 million euros and 29 derivative companies (spin offs) have been created.
The principal investigator of the project is María del Carmen Ruiz Cantero, a researcher at the pain neuropharmacology research group and belonging to the University of Granada and the University of Barcelona (Fundació Bosch i Gimpera), and is led by the group of Santiago Vázquez and Eugènia Pujol from the University of Barcelona, in consortium with Enrique J. Cobos del Moral, from the University of Granada, and Emanuele Amata and Agostino Marrazzo, from the University of Catania (Italy). It will have a grant of 300.000 euros.
Pain is a public health problem of the first magnitude. One in five people in Europe lives with some type of chronic pain, which reduces their quality of life and has significant socioeconomic repercussions, as well as high associated medical costs.
Acute pain also has an important relevance. More than half of the patients after surgery suffer moderate or severe pain in the immediate postoperative period, despite receiving analgesic treatment (mainly based on opioids). In general, existing analgesics have a very limited efficacy and significant side effects in more than half of the patients, which makes evident the need to find safer, more effective and non-addictive therapies.
In recent studies, researchers have discovered that the interaction with two biological targets, two proteins involved in the onset and maintenance of pain, produces a highly potent analgesic effect in various animal models of pain. The strength of these results has led researchers to develop new dual molecules capable of interacting with both targets, with very promising results in pathological models of pain.
The objective of the project in which the UGR participates is to find a new treatment to significantly reduce pain and thus improve the lives of patients.