BIOSPAIN 2025 held in Barcelona

Organized by AseBio with collaboration from Biocat, the Government of Catalonia and the Barcelona City Council as the Regional Host Committee, BIOSPAIN 2025 brought together companies, investors, institutions, research centers and international delegations to share advances, generate collaboration opportunities and discuss the main challenges facing innovation in health.

The 2025 edition reached a significant scale, with 2,400 attendees, 1,065 participating organizations, delegations from 34 countries, 4,500 partnering meetings and 250 exhibitors. Catalan participation was particularly significant, with 750 professionals registered from over 300 Catalan companies and a strong presence on the program, with more than 30% of the sessions featuring speakers or moderators from Catalonia. These figures demonstrated the maturity of the Catalan ecosystem and its ability to project itself in a highly competitive international environment.

Biocat played an active role in coordinating and highlighting Catalan participation, with the Barcelona, BioRegion of Catalonia pavilion serving as a showcase for the ecosystem’s diversity and potential. The space hosted startups, companies and organizations from the BioRegion and became a meeting point for international delegations, investors and sector stakeholders interested in learning about the Catalan model of innovation in health. In this context, several Catalan startups presented solutions in areas like gene therapies, nanotechnology, diagnostics and digital biotechnology.

The BIOSPAIN 2025 program focused on major strategic areas for the sector, like health data, advanced therapies, knowledge transfer, talent, investment and European cooperation. Biocat took part in sessions focused on 5P medicine and the European Health Data Space, new models for adopting advanced therapies and mechanisms to reduce risk in the early stages of biotechnology projects and facilitate access to capital. These actions helped make some of the BioRegion’s strategic priorities part of the international debate, including data interoperability, public-private partnership, generating evidence, market access and funding innovation.

The Catalan presence was also visible in the sessions on research, transfer and industry. Hospitals, research centers, companies and R&D hubs in the BioRegion shared their experiences in preclinical research, technology validation, clinical artificial intelligence, industrial partnerships and biomanufacturing. At the same time, projects and initiatives were announced that strengthen Catalonia’s industrial and translational capacity, showing that the proximity of research, clinical practice, business and investment is one of the ecosystem’s main assets.

Beyond the program, BIOSPAIN 2025 included institutional activities, visits to research centers and meetings with international delegations to showcase the BioRegion’s scientific, technological and business capabilities first hand. Visits to the Barcelona Science Park, Barcelona Supercomputing Center, Center for Genomic Regulation and Barcelona Biomedical Research Park, as well as meetings with delegations from other regions and countries, helped bolster international connections and open up new opportunities for collaboration.

Hosting BIOSPAIN 2025 in Barcelona consolidated the BioRegion as one of the driving forces of Spanish and European biotechnology and demonstrated the region’s capacity to host major international events, activate the ecosystem and create spaces to forge connections among science, business, investment and institutions. With BIOSPAIN scheduled to return to Barcelona in 2027, the city has strengthened its position as one of Europe’s epicenters of biotechnology and health innovation.