Within the field of Advanced Materials, IQS has created various spinoffs thanks to the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit of numerous professors and researchers at the university.These initiatives are a clear example of the importance of knowledge transfer from the academic and higher education world to industry.
Precision part coated with nanostructured titanium nitride (image courtesy of Flubetech)
Within the field of Advanced Materials, IQS has created various spinoffs thanks to the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit of numerous professors and researchers at the university. These initiatives are a clear example of the importance of knowledge transfer from the academic and higher education world to industry. Driving economic and industrial progress, these initiatives create jobs, knowledge, and technological innovation.
Patents and Spinoffs
The result of research in the field of materials and biomaterials, and a clear orientation towards their industrial application, a total of fourteen priority patents have been applied for in the last ten years and subsequently extended to other countries. Of these, twelve are currently active patents and seven have been licensed to five of the spinoffs created through IQS with the aim of bringing the technology to market and selling the products they make. Their applications focus on the field of high value-added adhesives, ceramic coating technologies for tools and functional surfaces, graphene synthesis, and a wide variety of biomedicine solutions.
Thanks to all this knowledge, several spinoffs specialising in the aforementioned areas have emerged that develop solutions for technological challenges in the industrial and life sciences sectors.
Four of them remain active today:
- Aortyx. A spinoff from IQS and the Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, Aortyx has developed a biomimetic and bioabsorbable adhesive patch that is a non-surgical solution to aortic dissection, a vascular disease that causes the rupture of the aortic artery for which there are currently no specific treatments. The patch is applied using a special catheter designed and patented by IQS and the Hospital Clínic.
- Flubetech. Founded as an IQS spinoff in 2006, Flubtech is a leading company in developing, manufacturing, and marketing ceramic and functional hard coatings with excellent hardness properties, wear resistance, and a low coefficient of friction using the most advanced coating technologies (PVD, HIPIMS, and HT-CVD). Flubtech's solutions are aimed at the metal and mechanical industrial sectors and the biomedical sector.
- GLOO. Created in 2021, this spinoff develops high performance adhesives. It began as Dr Sails, the first business line focused on the nautical sector. With technology developed and patented by the GEMAT group under the leadership of Dr Salvador Borrós, it currently has two lines that it markets under its own brand: Dr Sails, the brand they started with, and SB-POOL, a brand co-developed with Fluidra, as well as the GLOO line itself, aimed at developing adhesive technologies for industrial applications for third parties.
- Tractivus. This spinoff arose from the collaboration between the GEMAT group at IQS and the University Hospital of Bellvitge – IDIBELL. The company boasts vast expertise in antibacterial coatings based on nanostructures that prevent bacterial adhesions on the surface of medical devices, and their product is manufactured using their PHOBOStech technology.
