Roche Diabetes already employs 300 people at the global digital center in Sant Cugat

In 2017, the then vice president of new business models and digital solutions at Roche Diabetes Care, Yan Beynon, referred to Sant Cugat as the Silicon Valley of the Barcelona area. The reason: the choice of the multinational's division facilities in Catalonia to establish a hubdedicated to the design, construction, implementation, and maintenance of digital platforms with which Roche Diabetes Care would communicate with the digital health ecosystem worldwide, which included the development of applications foreHealth, digital marketing and social media solutions. Beynon also announced the creation of 40 jobs. Five years later, the development of digital solutions has positioned the center as a global innovation hub, with a team of 300 people, 45% of whom belong to the generationsmillennial andzillennial, who work internationally for the entire Swiss multinational. "In fact,we are also talent exporters for the entire multinational company", highlights the current general director of Roche Diabetes Care Spain, Josep Maria Vallmajó. The executivedefines the center as "the backbone of the digital development of the Roche group," which has digital business in 82 countriesHe highlights that it is a very diverse team made up of local professionals, but also by people from all over the multinational who come to learn about the advances that have been made from Sant Cugat. The digital research and development center "is in an ideal location because in Barcelona there is a lot of talent in this field.The proof is that the dimension of the Sant Cugat center has doubled compared to what it was five years ago and that digital development is decisive in the integral and personalized management of diabetes", explains the general director of the division. In this sense, he highlights the leadership of the Catalonia center in the development of the diabetes management platform adapted for use in primary care,called Roche Diabetes Care Platform, which they commercialize and distribute and for which they provide technical assistance service in all European markets. With this solution, which is already available to the Catalan public health system ---"and whichwe will implement in the short term in England and Germany and which we also have under testing in France", assures Vallmajó—the patient only has to go periodically to the health center with their glucometer, instead of the notebook, so that the healthcare professional can connect it to the computer to download the data easily and quickly. In this way, all glycemia data is stored on the platform and is available for consultation at any time. "We design digital applications that are the ones that carry the control devices and the ones that our clients use to manage these devices through their mobile terminals, but also—and it is one of the important projects we have—we innovate in platforms that allow healthcare professionals to provide better support and better management of patients."Roche Diabetes Care Platformis an open platform, "which means it can be used with other devices than those Roche manufactures in two global research centers the group has, and which are in Indianapolis (USA) and Mannheim (Germany)." In Sant Cugat, work is done with Artificial Intelligence,Big Dataand all available technologies that appear and with which "we can innovate to provide better service to people with diabetes and to healthcare professionals who treat this pathology," she specifies. "Let's remember that we are talking about healthcare, about health, and that there is a very important role, which is that of healthcare professionals," says Vallmajó.

The digital solutions conceived in Sant Cugat are the added value of the devices that the multinational develops in Indianapolis and Mannheim

The platformRoche Diabetes Care Platformis the central axis of the new specialized unit in type 2 diabetes that has been launched at the Sarrià Primary Care Center in Barcelona, to improve the management of patients affected by this pathology. One of the strengths of the unit is its ability to identify and filter poorly controlled patients. Currently, of the approximately 500 patients who come to the CAP to collect diabetes material, about 170 per month, 5% are referred to the unit after the identification of poor glycemic control at the time of downloading data from the glucometer. Apart from this entry route, which accounts for 70%, the unit also sees patients referred by other medical teams from the same center who need more personalized and diabetes-focused care.The collaboration with CAP Sarrià will be replicated in the coming months in other primary care centers in Catalonia and Spain.

Collaboration with local startups

The development of new digital projects is often accompanied by collaboration with other companies and scientific knowledge centers. Therefore, Vallmajó does not hide that they maintain conversations withstartupsCatalan ones, which are developing their products and in the future "we will surely see the results with integrations and collaborations." However, he cannot "reveal the names of the companies," nor does he provide data on future investments in the center or new staff hirings, "which will surely happen, because it is constant," he assures when referring to the fact that these decisions are made globally. He does give as an example the collaboration that the multinational began with thestartupMySugr, which had devised a mobile application for diabetes control, and which ended up integrating into the group in 2017. Or the cooperation experience since 2021 with the French company Diabeloop, which has developed an insulin infusion system with a pre-filled cartridge.

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