Page 13 - sme-report-2021

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Barcelona

Deep Dive: Barcelona

In 2019, Catalonia had about 7.5M residents, Among the many bioinformatics ventures that
making it the second-most populous region have launched in Barcelona are Seqera Labs and
in Spain, accounting for 16.1% of the total Minoryx. Seqera Labs provides an open-source
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population . At that time, Catalonia reached a and cloud-based high-performance computing
GDP of €228.68 billion. solution that helps researchers analyse large
biomedical datasets and manage their analysis
The Barcelona ecosystem represents a dense workflows. Minoryx focuses on the discovery and
and industrial community of SMEs with an active development of novel therapies for severe, orphan
presence of large multinationals, especially genetic diseases of the central nervous system,
in the biomedical, agro-food, automotive and a group of rare diseases often characterised by
telecommunications sectors. Barcelona is a neurodegeneration and no or few treatments
growing ecosystem for new ventures, with available.
particular strengths in gaming and life sciences,
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the majority of which in the digital health domain .
It has a long-standing research tradition in the field
of life sciences and all major research areas. 12
universities and more than 40 research institutes,
with at least 15 focusing on the life sciences,
provide scientific research and training. According
to the ‘Regional Innovation Scoreboard 2019’,
Catalonia is classified as a ‘Moderate+ Innovator’
that exceeds innovation performance compared
with the rest of Spain and is continuously growing. “
Ventures start and grow in more than 14 science
parks.

While lagging behind Cambridge and Berlin in ‘BITAC’s decision to locate its headquarters
overall early-stage capital being invested in the in Barcelona was inspired by the city’s strong
region, successful funding rounds are similar in entrepreneurial and digital health scene and the
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size to the global average . With more than 280
first-class scientific infrastructures of Catalonia.’
biotechnology, 180 medical technology, and 125
pharma companies, the region provides established
structures for new ventures in the life sciences. Mireia Rodriguez-Naque
BITAC, Barcelona

16 Region Innovation Scoreboard, Catalonia – Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs – European Commission. https://ec.europa.eu/growth/tools-
databases/regional-innovation-monitor/base-profile/catalonia (visited in 2019).
17 Startup Genome – Barcelona. https://startupgenome.com/ecosystems/barcelona