Cristina Nadal, new Biocat Director of Healthcare Programs

Cristina Nadal Sanmartin joined the Biocat team this November as Director of Healthcare Programs. The former Director of Healthcare for the Catalan Health Service (CatSalut) will now lead a new department at Biocat devoted to optimizing healthcare innovation assets generated in Catalonia. This way, Biocat is rounding out its global strategy to accelerate innovation in the healthcare and life sciences ecosystem in the BioRegion.

Cristina Nadal (Girona, 1973) has a degree in Medicine and Surgery (1997) and a PhD in Medicine from the University of Barcelona (2007). She specializes in Medical Oncology and, from 2007 to 2016, worked as a medical oncologist focusing on the digestive tract at Hospital Clinic Barcelona.

In the research arena, she was a fellow in Dr. Joan Messagué’s laboratory in the Cancer Biology and Genetics Department at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York from 2004 to 2006. She was also a researcher on the molecular and translational oncology team at IDIBAPS from 2006 to 2015, and has collaborated with research groups at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB). She was the teaching coordinator at the Clinic Institute of Hematological and Oncological Diseases from 2007 to 2015 and has been an associate professor in the University of Barcelona Faculty of Medicine since 2011.

In recent years, Cristina Nadal has pivoted her career towards healthcare management, with an Executive Master in Healthcare Organization Management from ESADE Business School (2013-2015) and the ESADE Business Degree in Strategic Management of Public-Private Partnerships (2015). Previously, she was Director of Healthcare for the Catalan Health Service (CatSalut) from 2016 to 2019, in charge of operations planning and public procurement of healthcare services. She was also Director General for Healthcare Planning for the Catalan Ministry of Health (2018-2019).

“By joining Biocat, I hope to make the most of my transversal view (healthcare, research, teaching, public management) and knowledge of the public healthcare system in Catalonia to optimize innovation assets that are coming out of the system (in biotechnology, medical technology, organization and processes) as well as giving the public healthcare system better access to innovation,” highlights Nadal.