Grupo Hospital Clínic, medical excellence at all levels

Patient health is the central focus of all the actions and activities of this consortium.

The Hospital Clínic Group is a global medical center dedicated to treating all types of pathologies, especially those of high complexity. It is composed of the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona in association with the University of Barcelona, the Institut d’investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer, the Fundació Clínic, barnaclínic+, -an entity of the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona responsible for the activity not financed by the public health system-, and other entities.

The Hospital Clínic de Barcelona is a public hospital with more than a hundred years of history, focused, from its beginnings, on care, research and teaching. For this reason, in 1989 it created the Fundació Clinic per la Recerca Biomèdica, the first foundation in Spain dedicated to promoting and managing research independently of care. Years later, in 1996, the Institut d’Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi Sunyer (IDIBAPS) was set up as a consortium formed by the Hospital Clinic de Barcelona, the University of Barcelona and the Generalitat de Catalunya, later joined by the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. IDIBAPS was created with the aim of bringing basic and clinical research closer together and working to answer questions arising from patient care.

Barnaclinic+ is also a member of the Barcelona International Hospitals (BIH) association, made up of seven hospitals and specialized centers in Barcelona with a vocation to serve international patients. Barnaclinic+ is the entity of the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona Group responsible for the activity not financed by the public health system.

Aware of the importance of innovation and research as fundamental elements in identifying the causes of a disease and its treatment. Grupo Hospital Clínic has been committed, from the beginning, to:

Having the most influential researchers in the world

According to one of the most prestigious rankings among the international academic and scientific community, the ‘Highly Cited Researchers’ ranking, carried out by Clarivate Analytics since 2001, four barnaclinic+ professionals appear among the best scientists in the world in 2021: Dr. Josep Dalmau, Dr. Ramon Estruch, Dr. Francesc Graus and Dr. Eduard Vieta. Four other scientists from Hospital Clínic – IDIBAPS are also included: Dr. Jordi Bruix, Dr. Josep M. Llovet, Dr. Joaquim Raduà and Dr. Emili Ros. And three other researchers from the University of Barcelona: Cristina Andres-Lacueva, Rosa M. Lamuela-Raventós and Ai Koyanagi.

Likewise, in the “Ranking of the World’s Top 2% Scientists“, Stanford University has identified the world’s most influential researchers, whose work has been most cited during their scientific career evaluated between 1996 and 2020. The study estimates that there are a total of 6.8 million active researchers, of whom 100,000 are considered to be the most influential. Among the latter, 18 are from Barnaclinic+ and another 36 belong to Hospital Clínici-IDIBAPS.

Develop innovative treatments and techniques

Hospital Clínic has succeeded in finding a new drug for patients over 25 years of age with lymphoblastic leukemia resistant to conventional treatments, called CAR-T ARI-0001. The treatment, developed entirely in Europe, has been approved by the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products (AEMPS) as a non-industrially manufactured advanced therapy drug.

On the other hand, thanks to the GMP quality seal granted to the tissue bank of the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, Transplant Service Foundation (TSF)Catalonia has the necessary certification for the development and procurement of drugs included in advanced therapies, and will be able to launch clinical trials to evaluate the efficacy and safety of the latest generation of cellular treatments.

Research to cure

For Hospital Clínic de Barcelona it is essential to be able to tackle diseases previously thought incurable. For this reason, it focuses its efforts on conducting clinical trials in the field of regenerative medicine and advanced therapies. It carries out different research projects financed by the FIS and the Ministries of Science and Innovation or Health to evaluate the efficacy in humans of the so-called advanced therapies (cell therapy, gene therapy and tissue engineering).

Accelerating digital transformation to continue improving patient service

To this end, the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona has established a collaboration agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS) in order to promote digital innovation in the field of healthcare through cloud technology. In order to move towards a more predictive and personalized medicine, based on the establishment of a continuous relationship between patient and professional.

Also with the aim of promoting innovation in patient care, Hospital Clínic has created the mHealth Observatory through which it seeks to generate useful knowledge from the implementation of cell phones and wearables, which stimulate the participation of people in the management of their health.

In addition, the Hospital Clínic Group has organized, together with Accenture Digital, the Hackathon, a meeting of programmers focused on collaborative software development, with the aim of developing an algorithm capable of predicting the survival of melanoma patients.

Promote knowledge and entrepreneurship in the health sector.

Likewise, together with the Leitat organization, the University of Barcelona (UB), the Hospital Sant Joan de Déu de Barcelona (HSJD) and IDIBAPS, the Hospital Clínic has created the Clinical Advanced Technologies Institute (CATI). This center is dedicated to innovation in health technology and aims to promote local knowledge and entrepreneurship and to host research centers of leading companies in the sector, both nationally and internationally.

To the same end, the Hospital Clínic Group is a member of the Barcelona Health Hub, whose mission is to promote innovation in digital health and its transfer to the sector, linking startups, healthcare organizations, companies and investors.

For more information about Grupo Hospital Clínic, contact us!