BIOSPAIN hits record participation in Barcelona and becomes the most crowded edition in history

Barcelona, 28 September 2023. –BIOSPAIN 2023, the international reference event for the biotechnology sector, has concluded its eleventh edition today in Barcelona with record-breaking participation figures: over the course of three days, more than 2,100 people from 975 entities and from 30 countries participated, a figure that is above the initial forecasts.

The Barcelona edition becomes the most crowded in history, both in number of attendees - 30% more than the last pre-pandemic edition held in 2018 -, entities (975), exhibitors (220), international representation (30 countries) and number of investors (100).

The Catalan representation has been decisive in achieving these good figures. In numbers, more than 300 companies from the BioRegió de Catalunya have participated, which represented more than a third of the total figure (975). More than 50 exhibitors have had their own booth in the exhibition space. An environment that has offered opportunities for collaboration with more than 100 accredited investors. The number of one-to-one meetings has exceeded 5,000.

Besides, it is also important to highlight the more than 20 ecosystem speakers who have shared the initiatives and potentialities of the territory during the more than 60 roundtable discussions, some of which were coordinated or participated in by Biocat.

These figures have been released today, on the last day of the congress, where Fina Lladós, member of the Board of Directors of the Spanish Association of Bio-Businesses (AseBio) and director of Amgen Spain, has highly valued  Barcelona as the host city.  The President of the Catalan Government Mr. Pere Aragonès attended the event and reaffirmed the robustness of a sector that is “key and strategic”.

The President of the Government of Catalonia highlighted the importance of the biotechnology sector in Catalonia, citing that "in the latest national call for advanced therapy development grants, CERTERA, announced on Wednesday, €27.3 million out of the €43 million awarded went to projects in Catalonia. This figure represents 63% of the total."

Aortyx, Biointaxis, CEBIOTEX, Cytes Biotechnologies, DBGen Ocular Genomics, D-Sight, MedBioinformatics Solutions, Gate2Brain, Beyond You, and Remab Therapeutics are just a few of the startups in the BioRegion of Catalonia that President Pere Aragonés visited with representatives of the Department of Health and Research, Universities, and others. These visits allowed them to gain global visibility. BIOSPAIN 2023 has been organized in the Catalan capital thanks to the coordinated collaboration among Biocat, the Generalitat de Catalunya, and the City of Barcelona.

News and debates about biotechnology

With regard to the scientific program, BIOSPAIN has offered a complete picture of the challenges and opportunities that mark the pace of the biotech industry with topics as relevant as advanced therapies and personalized medicine, biomanufacturing or data space, among others. 

The round table "Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products Strategy" shared the experience of the ecosystems of Catalonia and Guipúzcoa (Basque Country) in the development of strategies to promote this type of medicines. Robert Fabregat, CEO of Biocat, has presented the future Hub of Advanced Therapies, which Biocat coordinates. It has also done so at the session “New EU Regulations: Overcoming Challenges to Deliver ATMP to Patients in Need”, where speakers discussed the new European Regulation for these medicines, and how the new framework will improve the access of these drugs to the patient by reducing their evaluation to 30 days.

The session “Biomanufacturing is the future of Europe”, coordinated by Biocat, has focused on the transformative role of biomechanics in shaping Europe’s future and ensuring the sustainability of the bioproduction industry. The panel, entitled “Health data for innovative medicine and the health of the future, EDAH project” has examined barriers and drivers to unlock the potential of secondary use of health data.

Other round tables that drew a sizable crowd included the HIPRA session, where Èlia Torroella, director of R&D and regulatory affairs discussed how the COVID-19 vaccine was developed successfully; and the session "Can greater scale for Europe's biotech clusters be its key driver for global competitiveness?", where we examined how Europe could maximize its potential and use its resources to scale, among others.

The president of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Pere Aragonès, with representatives of the Department of Health, the Department of Research and Universities, the State Ministry of Science and Innovation and Biocat.

The president of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Pere Aragonès, at the BIOSPAIN 2023 congress

The president of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Pere Aragonès during his visit to the Almirall stand

The president of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Pere Aragonès, during the visit to the Astrazeneca stand

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• Download the image of the president of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Pere Aragonès, at the BIOSPAIN 2023 congress
   
• Download the image of the president of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Pere Aragonès, during the visit to the Almirall stand
   
• Download the image of the president of the Generalitat de Catalunya, Pere Aragonès, during the visit to the Astrazeneca stand