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Yesterday, 27 May, the Catalan Ministry of Health and Biocat presented their joint initiative Barcelona Clinical Trials Platform (BCTP) at Farmaindustria in Barcelona. Created in the final quarter of 2014, BCTP aims to position Catalonia among the top five European areas for conducting clinical trials.

Gabriel Capellà, head of research and innovation in the Catalan Ministry of Health, and Biocat CEO Montserrat Vendrell demonstrated the administration’s commitment and involvement to the more than 25 pharmaceutical laboratories present at the event.

Gemma Estrada, director of BCTP, highlighted: “BCTP will make it faster and easier to launch new clinical trials, as well as providing a one-stop gateway to 7 university hospitals of renowned prestige and a nationwide network of primary healthcare centers with more than 5 million patients.”

The great challenge for BCTP is to speed up the arrival of innovative treatments to patients in Catalonia by integrating the expertise of researchers, while also generating revenue for the industry and useful results for public health policies and interventions. During the presentation, Estrada pointed out that pharmaceutical laboratories can benefit from this platform, which gives them easy access to both clinical research professionals and patients.

The platform brings together the main hospital research institutes in Catalonia: Vall d’Hebron Research Institute (VHIR), Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO), August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBAPS), Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), Germans Trias i Pujol Health Sciences Research Institute (IGTP), Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM), Sant Pau Biomedical Research Institute (IIB Sant Pau) and Jordi Gol University Institute for Research in Primary Healthcare (IDIAP Jordi Gol).

Between 2012 and 2014, these research institutes recruited 13,287 patients to participate in various clinical trials in different therapeutic areas, through 1,487 participations in clinical trials. There are currently 2,740 participations in clinical trials underway and these centers have the capacity to carry out clinical trials in Catalonia in many areas, including oncology, infectious diseases, neurology, cardiovascular diseases, etc.

With BCTP, “coordination, integration, quality, inclusivity and speed of clinical research will improve”, says Estrada. This will be thanks to the optimization and homogenization of the clinical-research process in all of the member centers, as well as their joint human and technology potential. Moreover, BCTP will act as a platform to raise awareness and attract new studies from outside Catalonia.

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