Barcelona hosts first TEI Bio event to promote scientific entrepreneurship
<p>The organization aims to hold several events throughout the year in order to create an active community of scientists, entrepreneurs and business people in the biosciences sector</p>
On 26 April, a conference/colloquium by Dr. Xavier Testar and Dr. Manel Cascalló kicked off TEI Bio Barcelona, an initiative to strengthen scientific entrepreneurship in Barcelona promoted by the Associació Espanyola d’Emprenedors Científics i Tecnològics (AEEC) with collaboration from the Biotechnology Business Institute, Associació de Biotecnòlegs de Catalunya (ASBTEC) and BioSpeed Capital.
The event, which brought together approximately 30 participants, started at 6 o'clock in the evening and the two speakers, Xavier Testar (vice-president of the Associació Espanyola d’Emprenedors Científics) and Manel Cascalló (CEO of VCN Biosciences), proposed a debate on the needs of companies in the biotechnology sector.
The event featured executives and representatives from groundbreaking Catalan biomedicine and biotechnology companies, including Biocat, the Barcelona Science Park, CataloniaBio, ACCIÓ, Leitat, VHIR, IDIBAPS, Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (ICN2), Center for Genomic Regulation, IRB Barcelona, Bionure, Mind the Byte, Spherium Biomed, Capital Cell, Association of Biotechnology Communicators and Galènia Comunicación Médica.
Manel Cascalló of VCN Biosciences, created at IDIBELL to develop therapeutic approaches for tumors without effective treatment, highlighted that in his opinion the keys to success are having and sharing your passion for the project, identifying what generates value in each stage of the process, surrounding yourself with people to help you and experts, even if only part-time, and never losing sight of the company's strategic vision.
The debate opened among participants led to an analysis of the current status of the bioentrepreneurial ecosystem, funding, innovation models and knowledge transfer from universities, research centers and hospitals. The main ideas of the debate were included in the final minutes of the event as conclusions.
After the conferences, participants had the chance to forge professional synergies and set up possible meetings or collaborations at a networking event. This is precisely the end goal of the TEI Bio events: to create an active community to strengthen knowledge transfer, scientific entrepreneurship and investments in the biomedicine and biotechnology sector.
To do this, the organization is committed to holding events with a more or less standard format, like that on 26 April, which also seek to inspire students and young entrepreneurs with success stories. This is why they encourage CEOs from the sector to attend (in this case Manel Cascalló). AEEC hopes to continue with the initiative, which started in Valencia and has also spread to Madrid, Bilbao and Malaga, with other events throughout the year.