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R. Gomis is awarded the ‘II Valdés-Salas Prize in Applied Biomedicine’

By 18 de December de 2012No Comments
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Dr. Roger R. Gomis. Source :IRB Barcelona.
 18.12.2012

R. Gomis is awarded the ‘II Valdés-Salas Prize in Applied Biomedicine’

The jury of the "II Valdés-Salas Prize in Applied Biomedicine" has unanimously been awarded to IRB Barcelona researcher, Roger R. Gomis, for his scientific work in collaboration with the company Inbiomotion around the development of new markers to predict bone metastases in patients with breast cancer. The decision was made public yesterday in a ceremony held at the Historic Building of the University of Oviedo, chaired by the President of the University, Vicente Gotor, accompanied by Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Oviedo, Carlos López-Otín, and by Vice Presient of the Valdés-Salas Foundation, Joaquín Lorences.


The findings of Dr. Roger R. Gomis and his team have allowed the identification for the first time of the expression of a specific gene that predicts patients’ risk of developing breast cancer metastasis to bone and not to other tissues, independently of any other clinical/pathological parameter-currently used in clinical practice. These discoveries have had a transcendental impact on the creation of Inbiomotion Ltd. and on the subsequent incorporation of powerful investors to develop the business with an initial investment of € 2M. Among these investors is Ysios Capital Partners, the largest venture capital fund in biotechnology in Spain, as well as investment vehicles such as JV Risk Technologies Ltd. and the Vila Casas Foundation.

The jury’s decision recognizes the experimental work conducted by Dr. Gomis´s team in this field that has been the basis for the creation of the company Inbiomotion and subsequent incorporation to this new company of major national and international investors to enable the development of clinical applications of considerable interest in the field of Oncology, “, also highlights that “this work once again demonstrates that basic investigation of excellence can provide concrete and practical answers to problems of great biomedicine relevance”, stressing that ” this work demonstrates once again that quality basic research supported by prestigious scientific journals can provide specific answers to problems of the outmost biomedical relevance.”

Roger R. Gomis (Barcelona, 1974) holds a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology by the University of Barcelona. Since 2007, he has been undertaking his research work at IRB Barcelona. Prior to that, Dr Gomis used to work for the grouo led by Joan Massagué at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (New York, USA). He has published in the most prestigious journals and is one of the founders of the company Inbiomotion Ltd.

Inbiomotion Ltd is a spin-off of the Institute for Biomedical Research (IRB Barcelona) and the Catalan Institute for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA). The biotech, located at the Barcelona Science Park focuses on developing biomarkers for the prediction of bone metastases from primary tumor biopsies. In July 2012, Inbiomotion closed the first round of funding from Ysios Capital for a total of 2 million Euros. The unique biomarker developed by Inbiomotion encodes a nuclear protein and can predict which patients will develop bone disease. This marker has been validated in over 900 patient samples from two independent cohorts, with three independent techniques (gene expression, IHC and ISH), and has resulted in a negative predictive value of over 95%.

The Prize in Applied Biomedicine granted by the Valdés-Sales Foundation-promoted in collaboration with the University of Oviedo and co-sponsored by Bayer and the Asturian Pharmaceutical Cooperative (COFAS) – is called for the second time this year and aims to recognize the successful collaboration between researchers and companies. Its aim is to reward research used by a company with positive financial results. This feature gives a unique character to this award nationwide.