• The investment will initially generate 60 new highly qualified jobs

• The Institute will also be its new headquarters and will be located in the Álava Technology Park

• The project consolidates this firm from Alava in ‘personalized medicine’ based on Artificial Intelligence systems

The independent cooperative from Alava I+Med has presented a three-year investment project endowed with 20 million euros and in which the launch of the Intelligent Nanohydrogels Biomedical Institute (IIBNI) is observed. It will be the first in the world with these characteristics and will position i+Med in the medium and long term as a world leader in personalized medicine through artificial intelligence systems integrated directly into nanohydrogels.

The new Institute planned by i+Med will be located in the Álava Technology Park. Its implementation will create 60 new highly qualified jobs. The work will begin this year and its completion is expected by the end of 2024.

The launch of this project, disruptive in its conception, represents for I+Med not only an international accolade in terms of scientific reference, but also significant and positive growth in financial terms. Thus, and although the estimated turnover for this year in this independent cooperative is around ten million euros, the expectations for 2025 project a turnover of 25 million euros.

The labor aspect will also experience a favorable evolution with this investment, since of the current 71 people who make up the staff (58 are researchers and of them, 16 Doctors) there will be 125 at the start of the activity, scheduled for the end of 2024. all of them, in addition, a hundred will be top-level researchers.

New headquarters and state-of-the-art technology

The investment as a whole and the new International Institute in particular consolidates Álava’s position as a pole of economic development of reference for the Basque Country and for the entire world in the Pharmaceutical and Biomedical fields. A leadership that arises from the talent and innovative capacity that leading companies such as I+Med develop in favor of scientific excellence.

The investment is divided into two parts. The first, valued at 8 million euros, will be allocated to the new and modern infrastructure that will house the International Biomedical Institute of Intelligent Nanohydrogels. Inside you will see the cooperative’s R&D area, as well as an avant-garde pharmaceutical plant for the launch and distribution of new medicines.

The new I+Med headquarters will be built on an area of ​​3,600 m2 and will be distributed over two floors. The zero level will host everything related to administration and logistics; The first will house all the research and production activities, while the attic, baptized Gure Etxea, The House of Scientists, will be used as a free, playful and creative area for the cooperative’s research staff.

The result is a markedly functional and intelligent architectural proposal that responds to the special needs of a pharmaceutical plant. The drafting of the project, prepared under criteria of environmental efficiency, has been carried out by the firm LKS Krean.

I+Med has also reserved the adjoining plot with 10,000 m2 for a possible extension and expansion of the Institute.

The second part of the investment, endowed with 12 million euros, will be aimed at betting on state-of-the-art technology and machinery, as well as attracting and retaining highly qualified personnel.

“This project confirms that it is possible to develop Science and Innovation in the Basque Country around a sector as strategic as Health, and that the construction of a Basque ecosystem where scientific value prevails over economic ratios is also not chimera”, said Manu Muñoz, founding partner of I+Med.

More effective and direct drugs

Since its foundation in 2014, this cooperative of scientists has focused its activity on the development of personalized nanomedicine projects in the field of intelligent nanohydrogels for the controlled release of drugs and active substances. “They are alternative systems for dosing drugs that allow the target organ to be addressed in a more effective and direct way, which has a double social benefit: on the economic side, it reduces pharmaceutical spending, and on the patient side, subjects to a more effective treatment with less exposure to drugs, which avoids their side effects and has repercussions on a better quality of life”, explains Muñoz.

i+Med currently has nine Medical Devices references on the market and has six technology patents to its credit. Right now, it is researching 18 new projects that will see the light of day soon, some during the transition to the new plant and most from 2024, coinciding with the inauguration of the Institute.