José Manuel Navarro Pando, President of the INEBIR Group: “Time-lapse technology completely changes how an embryo is evaluated, and without the CDTI Innovation and FEDER funds this qualitative leap would have been more difficult”

There are companies that are born to fill a gap in the market and others that are born of a conviction. Bionac Laboratory belongs to the latter. Created within the INEBIR Group, the company was created with a very specific idea: that the distance between scientific research and its actual clinical application should be the minimum possible.

“It was born linked to the development of INEBIR and its commitment to integrate clinical assistance, advanced embryology and research in human reproduction,” explains Professor José Manuel Navarro Pando, president of the INEBIR Group and director of the Human Reproduction and Endoscopic Surgery Unit, who has led this project from the beginning with a scientific and assistance vocation.

With 17 professionals on staff —14 of them in the R&D department, including embryologists, laboratory specialists, scientific and technical profiles—, Bionac works in an integrated way with the clinical team of INEBIR. Not as parallel structures, but as a system designed so that advances reach the patient as soon as possible.

The company already has a solid research track record, with projects such as TRABIS and DELFOS, a regular presence at specialized congresses and publications in areas such as reproductive genetics, embryo selection and the optimization of fertility treatments. Its activity is based mainly on the national market, although the arrival of international patients —from France, Italy, the United Kingdom, Portugal and Latin America— reflects a growing external projection.

The embryo under another glance

In this context, Bionac has launched one of its most ambitious projects to date: the implementation of an embryo incubator with technology time-lapse aimed at improving the results of in vitro fertilization treatments. To understand its relevance, we first need to understand how the traditional embryonic culture model works—and what limitations it presents.

In a conventional assisted reproduction laboratory, evaluating the embryo involves periodically removing it from the incubator for microscopic observation. Every time that happens, the growing environment is disrupted. These are brief but significant moments. Time-lapse eliminates that friction: an integrated camera records embryonic development continuously, without the need to move the embryo or alter the culture conditions.

But Navarro Pando stresses that reducing this technology to “an incubator with a camera” would be very short. “The big difference between a conventional incubator and a time-lapse is not only the incorporation of a camera, but the complete paradigm shift in embryo assessment. The latter combines stable culture, continuous monitoring, morphokinetic analysis and artificial intelligence tools to make embryo selection more objective, accurate and less invasive.”

In practice, this means that the embryologist stops having isolated photographs of the embryonic development and goes on to have a complete film. And that difference, in terms of information and decision-making capacity, is enormous.

Staff of the laboratory Bionac (INEBIR) studies an embryo

Knowing more requires thinking differently

The main challenge that this technology has brought with it has not been technical, but interpretative. By having much more data on the development of the embryo, the laboratory team has had to learn to read it in another way.

“The challenge is the new embryo classification with much more information on embryo development, and we approach it by training laboratory staff in the study of embryo kinetics,” says Navarro Pando.

For the rest, the daily working protocols have remained essentially intact. The change, he explains, is limited to the incubator itself. It is a revealing detail: sometimes, the deepest innovation is not the one that transforms everything at once, but the one that quietly installs itself and changes things from within.

What the patient feels

There is a dimension of this project that deserves special attention and that has less to do with science than with people who go through an assisted reproduction clinic. Anyone who has lived close to a fertility treatment knows what the uncertainty weighs: the days of waiting, the unanswered questions, the feeling of not knowing exactly what is happening with the embryos in the laboratory.

The time-lapse doesn’t eliminate that uncertainty, but it does help reduce it. The ability to continuously monitor embryonic development and share that information with the couple transforms the treatment experience.

“It provides more information, transparency and a sense of accompaniment,” says Navarro Pando, who adds that all of this “increases confidence in the laboratory and favors a more personalized, innovative and close perception of attention.”

It is not a side effect of technology: it is also one of its purposes.

Efficiency that takes care of the environment

The technology time-lapse also has a dimension of sustainability that is not always mentioned and that goes beyond the laboratory. By reducing the manipulation of embryos and improving the accuracy of selection, it helps to avoid unnecessary treatment cycles, with all that this implies in terms of health resources, emotional impact for patients and system efficiency.

“From a health point of view, it promotes safer, more accurate and more efficient assisted reproduction,” says Navarro Pando. And from an environmental point of view, “the optimization of resources and the reduction of manipulations improve the operational efficiency of the laboratory”.

All in all, what emerges is, in his own words, “an evolution towards a more digitized, efficient and sustainable laboratory model.”

This approach naturally connects with several Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda: with SDG 3, health and well-being, by improving clinical outcomes and reducing unnecessary procedures; with SDG 9, industry, innovation and infrastructure, by incorporating cutting-edge technology into the healthcare environment; and with SDG 12, responsible production and consumption, by optimizing the use of resources in the laboratory and reducing avoidable interventions.

Staff and facilities of the Bionac laboratory (INEBIR)

The public impulse that changes the equation

A project of these characteristics requires time, talent and resources. At that point, the support of the CDTI Innovation and the cofinancing of the European ERDF funds have played a role that Navarro Pando does not hesitate to describe as decisive.

“It has allowed us to accelerate the incorporation of state-of-the-art technology into the laboratory and address a strategic investment with greater guarantees,” he says. Without that accompaniment, the equation would have been much more difficult to close.

But there is something that Navarro Pando values as much or more than the financial component: the systemic effect of this type of financing on the whole of the Spanish innovative ecosystem. In his opinion, “this type of financing plays a fundamental role, especially for companies that are committed to applied R&D and health technology, since it reduces barriers to access to innovation, encourages scientific collaboration and encourages the creation of qualified employment”.

The social impact, he adds, is perfectly measurable: “It allows us to develop more precise tools, improve healthcare quality and offer patients more advanced, personalized and efficient treatments, contributing to scientific progress and the well-being of society.”

An innovation without a finishing line

When Navarro Pando is asked if, once the implementation of the time-lapse is completed, they plan to continue incorporating new technologies, the answer says a lot about how they understand innovation in INEBIR. There is no specific announcement or a next project already closed. But there is an attitude.

“At INEBIR we are committed to constant evolution and continuous improvement. Our goal is to continue incorporating advances and developments that allow us to offer a reproductive medicine that is increasingly accurate, personalized and based on scientific innovation.”

It is the logic of those who understand that, in medicine, as in science, the goal is always a little beyond. And that the laboratory—that space where biology and technology meet to serve something as profound as the desire to be parents—deserves to be so.

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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