SERVICIO MADRILENO DE SALUD

Their core work

SERMAS is the public health service of the Madrid region, operating one of Europe's largest hospital networks. In H2020, they serve as a major clinical trial site and patient recruitment hub, providing real-world hospital environments where new therapies, diagnostics, and digital health tools are validated with actual patient populations. Their contribution spans from regenerative medicine trials and rare disease research to large-scale studies on cardiovascular prevention, paediatric medicines, and COVID-19 response. With 67 H2020 projects and access to millions of patients across Madrid's hospitals, they are a go-to clinical partner for European health research consortia.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

In the early period (2015–2018), SERMAS focused heavily on classical clinical trials — cardiovascular prevention (SECURE polypill trial), regenerative medicine (stem cell therapies for stroke, sepsis, bone), and liver disease treatments. The later period (2019–2021) shows a clear pivot toward digital health, pandemic preparedness, and patient-centered care: COVID-19 response, mental health, wearable technologies, and self-management tools dominate the recent keywords. There is also a growing emphasis on health data infrastructure and secure data exchange, reflecting the broader European push toward FAIR health data.

SERMAS is moving from being a traditional clinical trial site toward becoming a digital health validation hub, with growing capacity in real-world data, wearables, and patient self-management — making them increasingly relevant for health-tech companies seeking clinical validation.

How they like to work

SERMAS is overwhelmingly a participant (64 of 67 projects), not a coordinator — they bring clinical infrastructure and patient access rather than project leadership. With 892 unique consortium partners across 51 countries, they operate as a high-connectivity hub embedded in very large consortia (typical for clinical trial networks). This means they are easy to approach and experienced at integrating into complex multi-site studies, but you should not expect them to lead proposal writing or project management.

Exceptionally broad network of 892 unique partners spanning 51 countries, reflecting their role in large pan-European clinical trial consortia and health data initiatives. Their reach extends well beyond the EU into global clinical research networks.

What sets them apart

SERMAS is not a university lab — it is an entire regional health system serving over 6 million people, which gives them unmatched patient recruitment capacity and real-world clinical settings that few individual hospitals can offer. Their dual strength in traditional clinical trials AND emerging digital health validation makes them a bridge between pharma-style therapeutic research and the growing health-tech sector. For any consortium needing a large, experienced clinical site in Southern Europe with multilingual capacity and a proven track record across 67 EU projects, SERMAS is a reliable and well-connected choice.

Highlights from their portfolio

• AIMS-2-TRIALS
  Largest single project by funding (EUR 4.4M to SERMAS) — a flagship autism and neurodevelopment initiative, signaling major institutional commitment to mental health research.
• SECURE
  Large-scale cardiovascular prevention trial (polypill strategy) with EUR 794K funding — one of their longest-running and most clinically impactful projects spanning 2015–2021.
• c4c
  Pan-European paediatric clinical trials network running until 2025 — positions SERMAS as a key node in the infrastructure for children's medicine development across Europe.