Catalan Technology Transfer Offices meet at Tech Transfer Day 2025 to address the main challenges of the sector

The fourth annual meeting of the Technology Transfer Offices (OTTs) of Catalonia, organized by Biocat, has become the meeting point for professionals in technology transfer and innovation in ecosystem life sciences. This year, the event brought together more than 120 experts from academia, business and investment to analyze the strategic challenges of the sector and promote new collaborations.

The general director of Biocat, Robert Fabregat, and the general director of the Vall d’Hebron Research Institute, Begoña Benito, were in charge of giving the starting signal to the day.

Flexible and useful indicators: the challenge of OTTs

After the institutional welcome, a round table was held to discuss how to redefine OTT indicators to go beyond numbers.

This session, moderated by Núria Martí, Director of Innovation and Business Development at Biocat, was attended by Núria Benítez, Head of the Strategic and Open Science Area at CERCA; Xavier Testar, Deputy Vice-Rector for Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Transfer at the University of Barcelona; Teresa Lloret, Director of the Knowledge and Technology Transfer Office at IDIBAPS; and Anabel Sanz, Head of Technology and Business Development at the Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG). All of them highlighted the need to systematize data collection and rethink more flexible indicators that better reflect the reality of transfer activity.

They agreed that there is currently a large divergence between what is reported and what is actually done, and that the administrative burden often blocks the activity of OTTs.

In addition, the underrepresentation of inter-institutional collaborations, the lack of awareness of the value of know-how and industrial secrets, often considered the "little brother" of patents, and the need to measure the real social and economic impact, beyond contracts with the private sector, have been brought to the table. It has also been questioned whether all actors understand the indicators that are published in the same way, and the creation of a unified system has been proposed, with figures responsible for their management and interpretation, to avoid the dispersion of efforts.

Finally, it has been noted that indicators should not be an end in themselves, but tools to make visible the real impact of research on society, such as the direct benefit on patients or savings in the health system.

Inspiring cases of innovation and transfer in Catalonia

There was space to talk about technology transfer in the artificial intelligence sector. Meritxell Bassolas, Head of Strategic Projects at the Computer Vision Center; and Victor Rotellar, coordinator of the RDI-IA Network at the same center, explained the objectives of the Network “which was created to provide the Catalan AI ecosystem with effective technology transfer mechanisms, encourage the creation of startups and facilitate solutions reaching the market more quickly, without losing the scientific talent we have in the territory.”

Joël Jean-Mairet, Managing Partner of Ysios Capital, shared the characteristics of the new fund they are raising and have been working on for two years (called “InceptionBio”), focused on technology transfer, which will mainly seek biotech assets (but also diagnostics, medtech or AI), and projects in pre-seed and seed phases in Spain, which will leverage Ysios Capital's experience in accelerating companies and its consolidated network of more than a hundred investors built over the last 15 years. According to Mairet, “we want to capture and identify targets and/or projects that have very great and highly disruptive potential, since they are the ones that generate the most value, and that we want to continue supporting during the following growth periods, which is why we have set ourselves a fundraising goal of 100 million euros.”

Rafael Navajo, Director of Innovation and Business Development at the Vall d'Hebron Research Institute, then presented the new innovation management model implemented at the center, inaugurated in December 2024. "With the new VHIR innovation model, we want to transform scientific potential into real solutions for health, structuring the technology transfer process, supporting projects from the initial stages and promoting the creation of spin-offs that generate social and economic impact," said Navajo.

Finally, Núria Martí was in charge of closing the event, where she provided an update on the latest developments in Biocat's innovation programs, such as CRAASH Barcelona, ​​d·HEALTH Barcelona, ​​ATMP Catalyst and the BioRegion of Catalonia's health innovation community portal.