Companies connected to the Barcelona Science Park received €85.4 million in 2023, 38.6% of the total funding in the BioRegion of Catalonia, €220 million, according to the BioRegion of Catalonia Report, published annually by Biocat. Private funding was the main source of investment (€67.7 M), and almost quadruples the public funding achieved in regional, national, and European competitive calls (€17.7 M).  InBrain Neuroelectronics leads the ranking in attracting private investment (€20 M), with the largest operation recorded in the BioRegion of Catalonia in 2023. SOM Biotech (€17 M) and Nuage (€12 M) ranked third and fourth, respectively.

The entrepreneurial community of the Barcelona Science Park, comprising nearly a hundred start-ups and scale-ups that promote innovation in biomedicine and life sciences, continues to grow steadily, attracting investment and strengthening its role as an essential asset for the sector’s growth.

According to the operations identified in BioRegion of Catalonia 2023 report, of the total capital invested in 2023 in the BioRegion (€220 M), nearly 40% (€85.4 M) was concentrated in the Barcelona Science Park, which consolidates it as one of the most dynamic and forward-looking R&D and health ecosystems in Europe.

Although this figure was lower than the €142 million obtained by start-ups and scale-ups linked to the Park during the historic 2022 – an exceptional year because three record-breaking mega-deals coincided in the BioRegion of Catalonia (€445 M) – the public and private funding received by these companies in 2023 is more than double the amount achieved in 2021 (€39 M). This suggests that the Park’s community continues to attract more investment, despite the difficult global geopolitical and economic environment.

Private funding (venture capital, private equity and venture debt) was the main source of investment (€67.7 M), and almost quadruples the public funding achieved in regional, national and European competitive calls (€17.7 M).

The participation of international capital in funding rounds continues its upward trend. Half of the 2023 deals involved foreign investors. Furthermore, the €27.5 million in venture debt financing provided by the European Investment Bank (EIB) reflects its willingness to invest in new disruptive projects driven by start-ups and scale-ups with distinctive impact potential.

The biotechnology and medical technology sub-sectors, with €43.7 and €24 million respectively, led the attraction of private investment in health. The most represented therapeutic areas were the nervous system, oncology and immunology. femtech, emerging technologies for women’s health, and haematology are attracting increasing interest from investors.

Companies from the University of Barcelona Science Park community have obtained practically half of the financing raised by companies from the BioRegion of Catalonia. This fact, according to the director of the Barcelona Science Park, Maria Terrades, give a measure of “the Park’s relevance and position us as a key player and one of the epicentres of this powerful ecosystem.” And he adds that, in fact, these results are proof that the investment sector and public institutions trust the Park entities and their future projection: “we must continue to work with excellence so that these projects come full circle in our facilities.”

The largest operation recorded in the BioRegion of Catalonia in 2023

Inbrain Neuroelectronics led the most important operation in terms of funding registered in the BioRegion of Catalonia last year. The ICN2 and ICREA spin-off – which has created the world’s first graphene neural interface for the treatment of central nervous system (CNS) diseases – received a loan of €20 million from the European Investment Bank (EIB), with which it will accelerate the clinical development of its R&D programmes for Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy and speech disorders.

SOM Biotech, specialised in the repositioning of drugs for CNS diseases, closed the third largest transaction (€17 million) in the BioRegion of Catalonia with the EIB (€7.5 million), the US fund Prevail Partners and the current shareholders. The investment will be used to finance several ongoing projects: the phase IIb clinical trial of SOM3355 for Huntington’s disease, and the initiation of trials with other molecules in diseases such as tardive dyskinesia (SOM3366) and phenylketonuria (SOM1311).

Nuage Therapeutics took fourth place in the BioRegion of Catalonia, with the €12 million obtained in a funding round led by Sofinnova Partners and Asabys, in which the CDTI (Innvierte programme) and Banc Sabadell (Bstartup) also participated. With this capital, the IRB Barcelona and ICREA spin-off aims to promote its project against prostate cancer and to validate its platform for the discovery of drugs that modulate intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs).

Among the group of companies that received between €4 and 10 million in private funding are OneChain Immunotherapeutics (OCI) and DeepUll.  

OneChain Immunotherapeutics (OCI), a clinical-stage biotech company focused on the development of CAR-T candidates for oncology diseases, closed a pre-series A funding round of €6.7 million, led by Invivo Capital, with the participation of existing investors – the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Foundation and the CDTI – and two new investors, Nara Capital and Clave Capital. The capital will enable it to complete a unique clinical trial using CAR-T technology for patients with a subtype of T-cell leukaemia.  

DeepUll, specialising in the development of affordable, culture-free diagnostic solutions for the early identification of sepsis and other acute infections, received €4 million from Asabys, through its Sabadell Asabys Health Innovation Investments II (SAHII II) fund, which builds on the €13 million from a series B funding round held in 2022. These additional funds will allow the company to continue the development of its first-in-class sepsis identification technology platform and path to market.  

Among the start-ups and scale-ups that attracted between €1 and 3 million in private equity are: Omniscope, Zymvol, MiMARK Diagnostics and IDP Pharma.  

Omniscope received an investment of €1.8 million from Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm FoundersX Ventures. Deeptech is building the world’s largest immunological databank, with high resolution achieved through proprietary sequencing of immune cells and artificial intelligence. Its vertically integrated platform drives innovative therapeutic designs and diagnostic development.  

Zymvol closed a seed funding round led by the venture capital firm Elaia Partners with €1.3 million. With this capital injection, the company – which specialises in computational engineering for enzyme discovery and optimisation – aims to boost its portfolio and catalyse its widespread use in industry to promote a new generation of products that will lead the transition to a more sustainable future.  

MiMARK Diagnostics received a total of €1.27 million. In a deal led by investment funds Clave Capital, Nara Capital and Namarel Ventures, with participation from the WA4Steam network, it received €1 million. The CDTI also added to the capital of this VHIR spin-off in 2023 with a contribution of €270,000. These funds will allow it to accelerate development of WomEC, its in vitro diagnostic test for endometrial cancer.   

IDP Pharma closed a Capital Cell funding round with €1.13 million to complete the phase I trial of IDP-121, the first drug capable of blocking and degrading a key oncoprotein in various types of haematological tumours, such as multiple myeloma, the second most frequent and incurable blood cancer. IDP-121 is the first drug capable of blocking and degrading the protein responsible for its onset and progression.  

Other PCB companies that secured investments under €1 million include Pharmacelera (€922,911), a deeptech company specialising in disruptive computational chemistry solutions for drug discovery; Kumux (€500,000), another deeptech company that has created an intelligent system of circadian lighting in buildings, which imitates sunlight, to improve people’s health; and Connecta Therapeutics (€200,000), a spin-off from the Prous Institute for Biomedical Research focused on new treatments for unmet medical needs in CNS, the most advanced being a drug for fragile X syndrome (FXS), in clinical development.   

A leading hub for attracting public investment in health   

Several start-ups and scale-ups at the PCB significantly expanded their financial capacity through competitive regional, national and European calls for proposals. The public funding received by the companies of the PCB community in 2023 reached €17.7 million, mainly from the European Commission, through various instruments of the European Innovation Council (EIC), and from the NextGenerationEU fund, through public aid programmes of the CDTI and the State Research Agency (AEI).   

At the top of the ranking is the biotech OneChain, with €3.8 million (€2.5 M from the EIC Transition funding programme), followed by MiMARK Diagnostics, with €3 million (€2.5 M from the EIC Accelerator funding programme and €589,000 from the AEI grants for public-private collaboration projects); Leanbio, which received a financial injection of €2.1 million under the PERTE programme; GAT Biosciences, which attracted €1.9 million (SoE-CDTI call), and Connecta Therapeutics, with €2 million (€1.4 M from the AEI grants for public-private collaboration projects and €600,000 from Enisa).  

Companies that won competitive public calls of less than €1 million include Aptadel Therapeutics (€981,000), Nuage Therapeutics (€861,000), Pharmacelera (€600,000), Vitala Technologies (€704,000), Bioliquid Innovative Genetics (€500,000), Innervia Bioelectronics (€416,000), GAT Therapeutics (€327,000), Accure Therapeutics (€325,000), Real Deal Milk (€324,000), SiTec PharmaBio (€15,000), Gate2Brain (€15,000) and BeCytes Biotechnologies (€6,000).