The Spanish Biotech Sector is Dominated by Barcelona-Based Companies

Perhaps due to its high technical component and its demanding value propositions, the biotech vertical often goes unnoticed in Spain, the birthplace of less deep tech giants such as Glovo or Cabify. It is, however, one of the segments called to revolutionize the state of medicine and the eternal aspiration for healthy longevity.

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The Spanish biotech sector in the focus

In November 2023, Universal DX broke all the records of the year with a round of 64.1 million euros raised essentially in the US. Its preventive technology, close to being commercialized, will represent a before and after in the anticipation of different types of cancer, starting with colon cancer.

Led by Juan Martínez-Barea from Seville, the startup founded in 2012 reinforces a favorable premise: if Spain, with 13 million fewer inhabitants than Italy, raises more capital in the sphere of technological entrepreneurship , it is because there is plenty of talent and operating costs. They are advantageous compared to other neighboring economies.

The second company most endorsed by investors last year was the Valencian Arthex Biotech, protagonist of a round of 42 million. Specialized in therapies against diseases where conventional treatments fail, it symbolizes a perfect case of knowledge transfer from the university (via spin-off ) to the private sector.

Behind this duo stands out a bunch of Barcelona companies. Those mentioned below together raised around 82 million euros in 2023.

Artificial intelligence models

InBrain Neuroelectronics (20 million raised), SOM Biotech (17) and IOMED (10) are three examples of the revolutionary impact that AI will have on medicine, drug development and clinical bureaucracy.

The first develops personalized therapies to address neuronal disorders, the second focuses its efforts on the discovery of drugs and therapies for orphan indications and the third has software to structure patient records and accelerate research processes.

Prevention, the magic key

ADmit Therapeutics (5.4 million raised) and MiMark Diagnostics (5.2) focus respectively on the early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s and endometrial cancer (layer of the uterus that is very relevant to women’s reproductive function).

OneChain Immunotherapeutics (6,7) addresses the development of immunotherapies against hematological malignancies and Orikine Bio (5,5) specializes in cytokine engineering.

If Valencia and especially Seville represent a counterpoint to Barcelona’s hegemony in biotech , 2023 also included the competition in the Balearic markets of Laminar Pharma (8.8 million), whose strategy is based on a therapeutic approach called melitherapy.

Further away from the official biotech definition are the Canarian Woooptix (10 million, advanced image processing and manufacturing of scientific cameras) and the Basque Cimico (7 million, biotechnological solutions for wastewater treatment).

Again statistics depend on perspective. Last year, the Bankinter Observatory only counted 49.5 million captured under the heading biotech & life sciences , but Universal DX, Arthex and InBrain were left out of this label. The Reference makes a much more involving calculation and determines that this vertical actually moved 229 million.

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(Featured image by dominickvietor via Pixabay)

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First published in elLiberal.. A third-party contributor translated and adapted the article from the original. In case of discrepancy, the original will prevail.

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