INSTITUT DE RECERCA DE L'HOSPITAL DE LA SANTA CREU I SANT PAU FUNDACION

Their core work

IR Sant Pau is the research foundation of Barcelona's historic Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, one of Spain's leading clinical research institutions. They specialize in translational biomedical research — turning laboratory findings into clinical applications across cardiovascular disease, neurology, oncology, and infectious disease. Their work spans from regenerative stem cell therapies for stroke to CAR-T cell immunotherapy for cancer, and from AI-driven diagnostic tools to tuberculosis drug development. As a hospital-embedded research centre, they bridge the gap between bench science and patient care, contributing clinical trial expertise, biomarker discovery, and patient cohort data to large European consortia.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In the early period (2015–2018), IR Sant Pau focused on regenerative medicine, stem cell therapy for stroke, mobile health for schizophrenia, and self-management interventions — reflecting a clinically-oriented research base rooted in neurology and patient-facing tools. From 2019 onward, their focus shifted toward cardiovascular biomarkers, omics-based disease modeling, tuberculosis drug development, and AI-driven diagnostics, signaling a move toward more data-intensive and molecular-level research. This evolution suggests the institute is building capacity in computational biology and precision medicine while maintaining its clinical research foundation.

IR Sant Pau is moving toward data-driven precision medicine, combining its clinical expertise with AI, omics, and biomarker discovery — making them an increasingly relevant partner for digital health and personalized therapy projects.

How they like to work

IR Sant Pau operates almost exclusively as a consortium partner (9 of 11 projects), with only one coordination role (Living Evidence, a Marie Curie fellowship). They participate in large, multi-partner European consortia — their 182 unique partners across 25 countries demonstrate broad network reach rather than repeat collaborations. This profile suggests a reliable, experienced partner that contributes specialized clinical data and patient access without seeking to lead, making them easy to integrate into new consortia.

With 182 unique consortium partners across 25 countries, IR Sant Pau has one of the broader collaborative networks among Spanish hospital research institutes. Their partnerships span most of Europe, with particularly strong connections in health and biomedical research consortia.

What sets them apart

IR Sant Pau combines the clinical infrastructure of a major teaching hospital with a dedicated research foundation — meaning they can offer real patient cohorts, clinical trial sites, and bedside-to-bench translation that pure research institutes cannot. Their unusual breadth across cardiovascular, neurology, oncology (CAR-T), and infectious disease gives consortium builders a multi-disciplinary clinical partner from a single institution. Being based in Barcelona also places them in one of Europe's strongest biomedical research ecosystems, alongside institutions like IDIBAPS, VHIR, and CRG.

Highlights from their portfolio

• COMPAR-EU
  Largest single grant (EUR 777,786) — a major comparative effectiveness study of self-management interventions across four chronic diseases, reflecting the institute's strength in clinical evidence synthesis.
• T2EVOLVE
  Positions IR Sant Pau at the frontier of CAR-T and TCR-engineered cell therapy access and development, a high-growth area in cancer treatment.
• ERA4TB
  A flagship European tuberculosis drug development consortium (EUR 409,406 contribution), demonstrating the institute's capacity in preclinical infectious disease research beyond their cardiovascular and neurology core.