The CDTI Innovation delivers to the Bellvitge Hospital the first prototype of AI in Spain to anticipate the evolution in interstitial lung diseases

The Center for Technological Development and Innovation (CDTI Innovation), the innovation agency of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, has completed the formal transfer of the pre-commercial prototype SEPI-IA to the University Hospital of Bellvitge of the Institut Català de la Salut (ICS), culminating a four-year technological development process financed with 5 million euros from the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism, within the framework of the PERTE for Avant-garde Health.

The act of cession, held at the University Hospital of Bellvitge, was presided over by the Minister of Science, Innovation and Universities, Diana Morant, who made the symbolic delivery of the prototype to the Council of Health of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Olga Pané Mena. The event was also attended by the Secretary General of Innovation, Teresa Hazard, and the Director General of the CDTI, José Moisés Martín Carretero, together with representatives of the ICS, the Bellvitge Hospital and the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL).

The mechanism used for the development of SEPI-IA is Pre-Commercial Public Procurement (CPI), a strategic instrument of the CDTI Innovation that allows public administrations to identify real needs of the public system. After an initial process of consultation and market verification, the CDTI calls on the technology industry to develop solutions based on new knowledge that respond to the challenges posed and finances the risk of development without relying on hospitals or patients. The technological development of SEPI-IA has been carried out by GMV, a business group specializing in technological innovation solutions, and Tecnalia, a European center of reference in R&D based in the Basque Country, which have contributed their capabilities in artificial intelligence, medical image and clinical data integration to build a system that is now transferred to the real healthcare environment.

The University Hospital of Bellvitge is not a random recipient of this technology. Its Functional Unit of Pulmonary Interstitium is one of the national references in the diagnosis and treatment of EPID and its integration in the Campus Salut Bellvitge, an ecosystem that connects high-complexity healthcare, biomedical research and technological sector, provides the ideal environment for the clinical validation of the prototype. The IDIBELL has recently presented its new Research Program on Minority Adult Diseases, in which interstitial lung diseases are framed, reinforcing the scientific dimension of the project.

On the challenge of lung diseases

Diffuse interstitial lung diseases (EPID) constitute a group of more than one hundred pathologies, many of them infrequent, that affect thousands of people in Spain and whose diagnosis requires highly specialized equipment. Its most limiting characteristic is not only the diagnostic complexity, but the impossibility of anticipating which patients will evolve towards an accelerated and irreversible loss of respiratory function. When the lung loses capacity, it does not recover it.

SEPI-IA has been developed specifically to fill this clinical gap. The system applies artificial intelligence to the automated analysis of high-resolution computed tomography of the chest, transforming the conventional gray scale image into a color-coded representation that allows to detect and quantify interstitial lesions that the human eye cannot pinpoint, identify patterns of pulmonary fibrosis and integrate clinical and functional data of the patient to generate, for the first time in the National Health System, an individualized simulation of the expected evolution of the disease at one, two and three years.

Beyond the direct impact on patients, with more accurate diagnoses, treatments initiated at the optimal time and reduction of invasive procedures, SEPI-IA provides a relevant systemic dimension for the National Health System as a whole. The high complexity of these pathologies currently concentrates the expert diagnosis in a limited number of centers of high specialization. An AI-based support tool can reduce this variability, extend the expert criterion to hospitals without specialized units and improve efficiency in the allocation of therapeutic resources, contributing to territorial equity and the sustainability of the health system.

The SEPI-IA Pre-Commercial Public Procurement project of the CDTI is deployed in the field of a public-private partnership in which scientific-technological and clinical knowledge, biomedical research and technological industrial capacity converge to produce solutions that generate real value for citizens from public actions in technological innovation.

CDTI Innovation

The Center for Technological Development and Innovation, CDTI E.P.E. It is the innovation agency of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, whose objective is the promotion of technological innovation in the business environment. The mission of the CDTI is to ensure that the Spanish business fabric generates and transforms scientific and technical knowledge into globally competitive, sustainable and inclusive growth. In 2025, within the framework of the Strategic Plan 2024-2027, the CDTI provided more than 2 billion euros of support to Spanish companies and startups.

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