The startup Onalabs tests its Ona Sport product, for health and sports performance monitoring, in the Andorra Living Lab environment

Onalabs, the Catalan biotech startup with a subsidiary in Andorra, tested its own product called Ona Sport this monday at the Serradells sports centre. This product provides sportsmen with information on their own sweat rate, body weight, cardinal rhythm and lactate level; information considered essential for the improvement of performance and the prevention of injuries.

The act was carried out in the country thanks to the support of Andorra Research + Innovation (AR+I) and the support of Andorra Sports Cluster and Andorra Business. Ona Sport's test, which was carried out by volunteers who provided the device while pedalling a bicycle in the sports centre of Andorra la Vella, was the culmination of the process of optimising the recovery and processing of data in a real environment. "We can see the paradigm of the monitoring of people: the sweat explains who is going through what when it's a normal activity. In the end, the name was measured with blood and it was necessary to punish, for example, sportsmen, to keep them monitored. Today, more than 200 components were measured through the sweat. When you start to sweat, you are doing an activity that is stronger than the one you are doing: I have benefited from obtaining information", explained the CEO of Onalabs, Xavier Muñoz, who added that "Andorra Living Lab has served to open many doors and will continue to do so because this country is a very complete research camp because it has many sportsmen, and it will help us to develop our system and bring it to the whole society".

Andorra Research + Innovation promoted the Richie Enterpreneurs challenge so that companies dedicated to developing technology applied to the field of life sciences would come to Andorra to test their products. Andorra R+I has accompanied the startup to test its pilot, as well as connecting them with key agents in the country to make it possible. "Among the innovative strategic sectors being worked on in the country, being able to carry out a pilot in the field of biomedicine and sport is one of the first successes of the Andorra Living Lab project", explained the coordinator of the AR+I Innovation Agency, Vanesa Arroyo, during the event. "At Andorra Research + Innovation we believe that open innovation is a fundamental tool for growing the country's startup sector, as is the case of Onalabs, winner of the challenge we filled in 2021 and which we have now seen grow and materialise, with a subsidiary established in the country and testing its product. The pilot project demonstrates the fact that Andorra is an attractive environment for developing products in those strategic sectors in which we are working, such as biomedicine or sports, where we can quickly test new developments that can bring improvements to the public," said Arroyo.

Onalabs Inno-Hub won, in November 2021, the prize for the best startup awarded by AR+I and Richi Entrepreneurs, a prize that allowed its founders to participate in an internationally prestigious Richi Entrepreneurs Boston Immersion Program, where they were able to enjoy a series of events and training to connect with the leading international biotech ecosystem, and the opportunity to carry out a pilot project in the framework of the Andorra Living Lab, a project promoted by Andorra Research and Innovation. The startup has already created its subsidiary in the country, taking advantage of the new opportunities that are emerging in the Principality of Andorra in the field of innovation and biomedicine, and has carried out different funding rounds in order to develop and consolidate its activity.