Biocat was established in 2006 as a public-private foundation, promoted by the Government of Catalonia and Barcelona City Council, to provide a shared strategic roadmap for Catalonia’s biotechnology and biomedical sector. From the outset, the BioRegion was conceived as a project focused on competitiveness, talent attraction, and building a knowledge-based economy.

The 2007-2010 Strategic Plan was approved, establishing Biocat’s founding vision and mission and organizing its action around five areas: internationalization and promotion of Catalonia; consolidation as a one-stop shop for the sector; strengthening research and its valorization; business consolidation; and improving public perception of biotechnology. Biocat adopted a cluster-builder approach with a formal roadmap.

The development of the cluster became more operational and broader in scope: the term medical technologies was explicitly incorporated, and the first sector-specific services were rolled out — a directory of companies and organizations, a funding search tool, a website, an e-newsletter, and a press roundup. Biocat moved from defining the narrative to providing functional infrastructure for the sector.

Biocat identified the importance of systematizing the value chain from lab to market: proof of concept, intellectual property protection, licensing, startup creation, incubation, and executive talent programs. Coordinating the ecosystem and organizing technology transfer became two simultaneous missions.

Barcelona hosted BIO-Europe Spring for the first time, one of the world’s leading biotechnology partnering conferences. The event, organized by EBD Group with the collaboration of Biocat and the Local Host Committee — made up of the Government of Catalonia and other organizations supporting the sector — put the BioRegion on the map as a destination for major international health conferences, which continued to come to the city consistently over the following years.

At the close of the first strategic cycle, Biocat consolidated five areas of action — cluster, business competitiveness, internationalization, training and human capital, and social perception — and launched its first acceleration and entrepreneurship initiatives: BioEmprenedorXXI and Biocàpsules, as well as the International Center for Scientific Debate — later B·Debate — to promote frontier research and attract top-tier researchers to Catalonia.
Preparation began for the 2010-2013 Master Plan, which would establish the model based on a comprehensive vision of the value chain, from research to market.

The 2010-2013 Master Plan established five strategic priorities. Against a backdrop of budget cuts and internal restructuring, Biocat consolidated B·Debate, maintained its training programs, presented the second Biocat Report, and continued its work in internationalization, business competitiveness, talent, and social perception. It was a period of consolidation under resource pressure, but with growing activity.

Biocat refocused its activity with a particular emphasis on competitiveness and talent, and regrouped its work into four executive areas: entrepreneurship and innovation, training and talent, internationalization, and debate/knowledge/society. New forward-looking and highly innovative projects in both format and content were prepared, including Moebio, with Design Health Barcelona (d·HEALTH Barcelona) as its flagship program. At the same time, Catalan participation in the EIT’s Health and Food KICs was promoted. The organization began investing in transformational programs, not only in cohesion-building actions.

In terms of international positioning, 2012 stood out as the first major edition with significant participation from Catalonia at the sector’s biotechnology conference, the BIO Convention, in Boston. With 72 companies and research and sector-support institutions, the BioRegion of Catalonia delegation represented more than 60% of the Spanish delegation and was led by the President of the Government of Catalonia, Artur Mas. During the mission, Biocat’s first international report, the Catalonia Life Sciences Report 2011, was also presented, in collaboration with Ernst & Young.

With the launch of Moebio and d·HEALTH Barcelona, Biocat entered a new agenda: innovative talent, hospital immersion, health entrepreneurship, and connection with leading European initiatives. The third Biocat Report strengthened Catalonia’s positioning as one of Europe’s most dynamic bioclusters. An amendment to the bylaws expanded business representation on the Board of Trustees — at the proposal of Farmaindustria, CataloniaBio, and Fenin — marking a turning point in both programming and governance.

The operational mission was redefined around four areas: sector knowledge and visibility; promotion of major strategic system-wide projects; talent and entrepreneurship development; and business valorization and growth. The key outcome of this refocusing was the selection of EIT Health, a candidacy promoted since 2008. This was complemented by participation in RIS3CAT and the consolidation of d·HEALTH Barcelona with its first cohort. Biocat evolved from being solely a cluster driver to also becoming a platform for innovation and strategic alignment with its own voice.

Albert Barberà succeeded Montserrat Vendrell as CEO, marking the start of a new strategy that maintained the major lines of action while placing greater emphasis on the valorization and transfer of technology and knowledge. Biocat maintained the four areas defined in 2014 and translated them into a portfolio of programs and significant international activity.

The Barcelona Clinical Trials Platform was launched, promoted together with the Department of Health to position Catalonia among the top five European regions for clinical trials, serving as a gateway to a critical mass of patients and hospital centers. Biocat was no longer merely connecting stakeholders: it became a government instrument for building collaborative infrastructure and country-level projects.

EIT Health began operating as the major European initiative for innovation in health, with Biocat as an associate member and driver of the Catalan-Spanish node. B·Debate surpassed 1,000 participants and 226 speakers. The first Health & Bio Team Dating brought together nearly 80 scientists and managers, with more than 200 meetings held. d·HEALTH Barcelona and Moebio were consolidated as benchmark programs in Europe for acceleration and the generation of startups in medical technologies.

In terms of international visibility, Biocat coordinated the Catalan delegation to the BIO Convention in Philadelphia, with 37 organizations; renewed its website as an international information reference point for the BioRegion; and led or participated in European projects such as bioXclustersplus and ETTBio.

Jordi Naval takes over as CEO of the organization. The activity portfolio had expanded considerably: BioEquity, CRAASH Barcelona, d·HEALTH Barcelona, Investment Readiness Series, Open Innovation Forum, Here Comes Your Lead, B·Debate, and international collaborations were operating simultaneously. Biocat was already working across virtually the entire ecosystem scaling chain, from talent and ideas to funding, open innovation, and international visibility.

Despite the shock of COVID-19, Biocat maintained strategic continuity and launched immediate-response programs such as Chasing COVID, while adapting CRAASH Barcelona, d·HEALTH Barcelona, Health & Bio Team Dating, B·Debate, Open Innovation Forum, and Pitch Training Program, all of which coexisted in a “historic year.” A resilient organization, capable of pivoting without giving up its core assets.

After fifteen years, Biocat began an internal reinvention process and set out two particularly significant priorities for the new phase: building an internationally recognized hub for advanced therapies and personalized medicine, and accelerating patient access to new technological solutions. The institution clearly positioned itself within an industrial policy and health system agenda. Robert Fabregat is appointed as the new CEO of Biocat and has led this new stage to the present day.

The 2021-2023 Strategic Plan organized the new phase around specific challenges facing the BioRegion: technology transfer; acceleration and talent; capital mobilization and investment attraction; technological adoption by the public health system; and business consolidation. The strategic areas were structured around three domains: transfer/talent/business acceleration, an independent voice and strategic influence, and international positioning of the BioRegion. The language shifted from “energizing” to “influencing.”

Biocat publicly presented, at an institutional event before the President of the Government of Catalonia, the most important milestone achieved to date as part of its European activity: Catalonia’s leadership of the European PRECISEU project (Personalised Medicine Empowerment Connecting Innovation Ecosystems Across Europe), an ambitious initiative to promote personalized medicine and advanced therapies in Europe, selected as one of the five winning projects in the highly competitive Regional Innovation Valleys (RIV) call. Catalonia is the region with the largest number of participating partners in this project, coordinated by Biocat, which brings together 25 partners from 12 European regions and has a budget of nearly €23 million.

The new plan broadened Biocat’s ambition: Biocat advocated for the need to consolidate the sector in the face of the challenges posed by new technologies, emerging therapeutic strategies, and new patient-centered care models, through the lens of sustainability, equity, and inclusion. The strategy was explicitly aligned with Catalonia’s main public frameworks — the Health Plan, PERIS, RIS3CAT 2030, the National Pact for Industry, and the National Pact for the Knowledge Society.
Biocat was consolidated as an instrument for driving strategic projects that are key to the country’s future and for contributing from Catalonia to a more technologically competitive Europe, in line with the New European Innovation Agenda.