Startups with 3D printing in health, water or agri can use now new resources from the Institute of Technology of the Canary Islands (ITC)

The Regional Minister of Economics, Knowledge and Employment, Elena Máñez, and the Director of the Canarian Agency of Research, Innovation and Information Society (ACIISI), Carlos Navarro, visited this Wednesday the new facilities of the Biomedical Engineering Department of the Institute of Technology of the Canary Islands (ITC), recently moved to the Pozo Izquierdo headquarters, in Gran Canaria, where Máñez could know first-hand the technological support that this field of medical components manufacturing engineering offers to the productive market in the islands along with the centre’s manager, Gabriel Megías; with the R+D+i coordinator, Gonzalo Piernavieja; and by the area manager, Donato Monopoli.

With over 5,381 square metres in surface and an investment close to a million euros in cutting-edge equipment, this industrial machining and advanced electromechanics centre, which is specialized since 1999 in the additive manufacturing of porous titanium implants for bone reconstruction and which currently counts with more than 350 interventions in humans (personalized 3D design) and more than 20,0000 devices implemented in veterinary medicine (mass production), broadens their mechanical precision manufacturing capacities to functional pieces of high added value and prototype, bigger size and made with new materials (aluminium, steel, Inconel…).

The Regional Ministre and also president of the ITC, Elena Máñez, highlights “the competitive advantage that means for the Canary Islands the fact of having a centre that is specialized in advanced manufacture engineering from which the islands can benefit in the private sector, and which will nourish other areas of investigation in the islands, thus allowing the consolidation of a competitive ecosystem of science and technology with a positive return”. The reinforcement of the technological capacities of this public centre is not limited to the biomedical field and will result in the strengthening and growth of the local industries and the development of high-tech sectors (aeronautics, biotechnology, hydraulics, agri-food) and therefore in the generation of high-skilled employment.

The Biomedical Engineering area of the ITC, which is well-known nationally and internationally, and which counts with 6 international patents so far, is already working in the handoff of knowledge regarding design techniques and manufacturing of metal pieces to other technological sectors. This is the case of the AQUASOST project (Reinforcement of the R+D+i capacities in terms of governance and hydraulic and energetic efficiency of the transport technologies and water treatment), subsidised with the amount of €963,214.90 by the Canarian Agency of Research, Innovation and Information Society (ACIISI) of the Government of the Canary Islands by means of the Operational Programme FEDER Canarias 2014-2020 with the purpose of producing locally the components necessary for the functioning of hydraulic networks, water treatment plants, etc.

Along with the AQUASOST subsidy, the Regional Ministry of Economics, Knowledge and Employment of the Government of the Canary Islands promotes the ITC’s activities in this field through investment in “Equipment to activate remarkable/strategic services for the improvement of the competitiveness and quality of the businesses in the agri-food and biomechanics sectors” and through a subsidy of €69,883.33 granted to the DINAMICA project (Research and development of a dynamic implantable system for the surgical reconstruction of critical bone and cartilage defects along the thoracic wall that allows to restore the post-surgical physiological breathing).

These initiatives involve the creation of two new job positions in this area, along with three new personnel incorporations covered by the INVESTIGO Programme from the Employment Service of the Canary Islands, the purpose of which is to facilitate the recruitment of young people seeking for a job in scientific and technological entities to develop research and innovation projects. Additionally, there is an increase in personnel covered by OSTEOBIONIX (and its commercial trademark Biosurgex for verterinary), a spin-off of ITC itself which has recruited seven people and a freelance worker to face this expansion. 

Translated by Andrea Expósito Santana