ATMP Day 2026 strengthens coordination across Catalonia’s advanced therapies ecosystem and reinforces its ties with Europe

Professionals from companies, research centers, hospitals, scientific facilities, and public administrations gathered at CaixaForum Barcelona on September 10 for ATMP Day 2026. Held as part of the ATMP Catalonia network, the event provided an opportunity to review the ecosystem’s development, share the sector’s most significant advances, and explore the trends that will shape the future of advanced therapies in Europe.

The event took place the day after the close of Advanced Therapies Europe 2026, which brought together international professionals and organizations from across the sector in Barcelona from September 7 to 9.

Toward a shared European roadmap

The keynote address was delivered by Miguel Forte, CEO of Kiji Therapeutics and former president of the International Society for Cell & Gene Therapy. His remarks offered an international perspective on the evolution of cell and gene therapies and the scientific, business, and regulatory changes transforming the sector. The presentation framed the challenges facing Catalonia and Europe within a global landscape characterized by accelerating innovation, the emergence of new therapeutic modalities, and growing competition to attract investment, talent, and manufacturing capabilities.

The European dimension was also at the heart of the roundtable Towards a European ATMP Roadmap: Aligning Science, Manufacturing and Access Through Europe’s Leading Ecosystems, moderated by Montse Daban, Director of Strategy and Global Alliances at Biocat. The panel featured Marina Cavazzana, Director of the Biotherapy Clinical Investigation Center at GHU AP-HP–INSERM; Jim Lund, Director of Business Development at CCRM Nordics; Paolo Morgese, Vice President of Public Affairs, Europe, at the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine; and Fatima Núñez, Deputy Director of Research, Innovation and Knowledge Management at Sant Joan de Déu Barcelona Children’s Hospital.

The discussion explored how Europe’s leading ecosystems can collaborate to better align research, manufacturing, and patient access. Participants examined the obstacles currently hindering the advancement of advanced therapies in Europe, ranging from regulatory fragmentation and manufacturing constraints to challenges related to funding, reimbursement, and adoption by healthcare systems.

An international perspective on the sector’s future

Amit Agarwal, Managing Director, Life Sciences Advanced Therapies at Deloitte Consulting, offered an international perspective on the future of advanced therapies. He presented the Deloitte CGT Market Index, outlining how the cell and gene therapy market has evolved in recent years and where the sector is headed globally.

ATMP Catalyst: a tool to accelerate scale-up

One of the event’s highlights was the presentation of the projects and companies selected for the second edition of ATMP Catalyst, a program designed to address the development and scale-up needs of advanced therapy projects in the BioRegion of Catalonia.

The session provided an opportunity to share the program’s progress and the work carried out to support promising projects, connect them with the capabilities available across the ecosystem, and help them progress toward more advanced stages of development.

NEXCAT: a new network working toward a joint, coordinated approach

The event also provided an opportunity to present NEXCAT, a network of centers of excellence in advanced therapy medicinal products that brings together the Blood and Tissue Bank, CREATIO-UB, Hospital Clínic Barcelona-IDIBAPS, Sant Pau Research Institute, Sant Joan de Déu Foundation, VHIR, VHIO, and Biocat, all of which are members of ATMP Catalonia.

NEXCAT aims to bring together capabilities distributed across Catalonia into a coordinated, joint initiative. To achieve this, the network will foster complementarity among the resources available for research, development, and manufacturing; identify each organization’s strengths; and facilitate coordinated action throughout the advanced therapies value chain.

This model will enable Catalonia to operate as a cohesive ecosystem rather than as a collection of organizations working independently. It will also strengthen the visibility of Catalonia’s capabilities at the European level and foster collaboration with other leading biomedical ecosystems.

A year of progress in advanced therapies

Núria Montserrat, Minister of Research and Universities, reviewed the key advances made in advanced therapies over the past year. The session placed the evolution of these therapies within the context of Catalonia’s health research and innovation policies and identified the challenges that still need to be addressed. The review also highlighted the importance of stable collaborative platforms such as ATMP Catalonia, which can connect the scientific, clinical, technological, industrial, and business capabilities across the ecosystem. Antoni Plasència, Director General for Research and Innovation at the Ministry of Health, delivered the institutional closing remarks, followed by a networking reception that brought the event to a close.

ATMP Day 2026 once again highlighted the strength and diversity of Catalonia’s advanced therapies ecosystem, as well as the need to continue improving connections among existing capabilities. Catalonia has a renowned scientific and clinical base, emerging companies, and specialized infrastructure. The challenge in the coming years will be to transform these assets into a coordinated value chain capable of supporting projects from research through scale-up, manufacturing, and adoption by the healthcare system.