Between 2021 and the first months of this year, the Barcelona Science Park (PCB) has captured a total of 25 companies. A complete success, given that the conditioned spaces are already fully occupied (98%), which makes it a European reference hubin the areas of life sciences and health.
Currently, 92% of its total area for clients (32,955 m²) is already occupied (21,061 m² correspond to laboratory spaces and 9,309 m² to offices), a fact that represents an increase of 9%, in relation to occupation, at the end of 2020. The total inversion to fit out new spaces was €1.9M, of which €0.5M was contributed by the park, €0.3M by Barcelona City Council and the rest (€1.1M) by the customers themselves.
Since 2012, when the last building was completed, Cluster II, the park began a stage of growth gaining, since then, 3,652 m² of offices and 7,352 m² of laboratories. Cluster II is currently at 89% occupancy of its total available area, of which the spaces that remain free are pending to be conditioned.
Entrepreneurial projects with social impact
Of the total number of incorporated companies, four of them, Aptadel Therapeutics, MiMark Diagnostics, Nuage Therapeutics and OneChain Immunotherapeutics, have begun to develop their activity within the framework of the BCN Health Booster accelerator, which started in November 2021 promoted by the Barcelona Science Park and the Barcelona City Council, with the collaboration of Barcelona Activa and the support of Biocat.
AdBio Partners, Devsynthesis, Draconis Pharma, Fertinagro Biotech, IMIDomics, Inbrain Neuroelectronics, Labin, Millhouse International, NIVD-BCN, oloBion, Omniscope, Real Deal Milk, Rejuveron Senescence Therapeutics, Seritech, Solitek, Tyris Therapeutics and Zip Solutions have also been incorporated. .
In this period they have also incorporated four companies as associated entities: G&L Scientific Spain, Hemostatics Pharmaceutical, Gate2Brain and Prous Institute for Biomedical Research. The 25 companies occupy some 1,500 m2 of office and laboratory space in a community that already has 130 entities.
“The Park has closed a record year and begins 2022 with a very strong rate of additions to our community with different company profiles: spin-offs and startups with a high component of innovation and with projects to discover therapeutic products or diagnosis, but also consolidated companies that bet on our center, or foreign companies that decide to install their European subsidiary in the PCB. This dynamism of the park in the last four years is one more indicator of the growth and consolidation that the health sciences sector is experiencing”explains Maria Terrades, director of the Barcelona Science Park.
Return to society of investment in research
Most of the incorporated companies are emerging companies with a high component of innovation and social impact, Small Teams, Lab Demand, and Big Growth Prospects. Already consolidated companies or entities that land in Europe have also been established and have decided to bet on the BioRegion of Catalonia, and specifically settle in the park. The average is 5 workers per company, although some provide more than 30.
Seven of the new companies incorporated are spinoff, that were born from projects and technologies developed within public universities, hospitals and research centers of excellence: Aptadel Therapeutics (Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute, IDIBELL); Gate2Brain (Sant Joan de Déu Hospital, Sant Joan de Déu Foundation, IRB Barcelona and University of Barcelona); IMIDomics, (Vall d’Hebron-VHIR University Hospital), Inbrain (Catalan Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, ICN2); MiMark (Vall d’Hebron-VHIR University Hospital), Nuage (IRB Barcelona) and OneChain (Josep Carreras Leukemia Research Institute).
As for his international dimension, seven of the new companies are subsidiaries of international groups: AdBio Partners (France), Devsynthesis (India), G&L Scientific (USA), Millhouse International (South Africa), NIVD-BCN (UK), Rejuveron Senescence (Switzerland) and Seritech Europe (Thailand).
