Ignasi Biosca: 'Our biggest challenge is to make way for a pipeline of less mature projects'

- This year is CataloniaBio´s 10th anniversary. What is your assessment of these ten years of life?

In 2006 a group of entrepreneurs in the sector decided to create CataloniaBio. Their mission was to represent companies wishing to promote a strategic and innovative cluster and also to face together the challenges they shared. This provided an open communication channel with institutions that allowed them to participate in the definition of action plans of the sector as well as in Public Administration policies. During these ten years, and due to the peculiarities of the sector, companies in the field of life sciences and health have suffered the economic crisis in a particular harsh way. We have experienced the close down of businesses due to lack of funding and, in fact, CataloniaBio was very close to being another casualty of the economic crisis and model.

After the difficulties of these years and thanks to the collective desire to keep moving forward, 2015 was a turning point bringing positive news of international investment which put us back on track. With only five companies -Minoryx Therapeutics, Sanifit, Palobiofarma, Oryzon and Aelix Therapeutics- we were able to raise over 100 million euros that will go to new medicines, new jobs, the subcontracting of clinical services ... And this growth is not seen in many areas. We face 2016 with optimism and we believe that now is the time to give momentum to scientific projects that will turn into business in the hands of entrepreneurs.

- In January 2014 you took over as Chairman of the Board of Trustees with an action plan based on four strategic pillars: cooperation and internationalization; procurement of finding; knowledge transfer; and communication. After two years personally committed to these challenges, what is your take on the progress achieved?

The messages we receive from the sector make us think that the balance is positive. The Board of Trustees has wanted to invest and commit to work on the consolidation of the association. We have increased the range of existing initiatives and services for our partners and tried to be imaginative to create new ones. In this regard, during these two years, we have developed activities within the framework of each strategic pillar such as Nit de CataloniaBio, which recently brought together more than 250 entrepreneurs, investors and researchers; this year´s Bioèxit Prize; CataloniaBioBBQ, a more informal gathering for member of our sector; new sessions of Lessons Learned with Biocat, the cycle of conferences to share experiences that puts us as the frontline as a partnership and ecosystem; the Hospital Connection initiative as a point of contact with hospital research centers; the Meet the Investor program, a series of discussions with international investors in small settings; the Vermouth or Cocktail Hour with journalists aimed at making our companies and sector more visible to the media in a more non-institutional fashion; and Health&Bio Team Dating, matching researchers and entrepreneurs so that through their joint work they can make a new company viable.

- Looking to the future... What new projects will the Board of Trustees be engaging in?

Despite the positive balance, at CataloniaBio always look forward aware that we still have a long way to go. We are currently more than 75 member companies, including multinationals, SMEs, start-ups and spin-offs that show the diversity of our sector, but there are still many companies that can join the association and make us collectively stronger.

As a sector, we still have unfinished ideas to bring to life. One of our main ideas is to turn scientific potential into innovation; that is, an effort to ensure that scientific advances reach society in the form of medication or medical technology. Hence, our biggest challenge is to make way for a pipeline of less mature projects, projects of excellence and of highest level, so that these projects can benefit from the knowledge and experience gained by all of us. We need to enhance the value of co-operation and strengthen the ties with hall these actions, which is what makes us and will make us bigger and stronger both as separate projects and as a business ecosystem of research and innovation.

- From the perspective of your position as chair and also as a member of the Pharmaceutical Industry Board and board member of several other biotech companies, what is the current state of the bio sector in Catalonia? Is it quite different from the rest of Spain?

In general, any good things are being done throughout Spain in our industry, but I want to emphasize that leadership remains in Catalonia and we have the will and the commitment to keep it that way, although sometimes there are many obstacles to overcome. As I explained earlier, the industry is maturing. Throughout our 10 years of existence, we have created many companies and entrepreneurs with international experience and projects that attract the interest of international investment funds and multinationals. CataloniaBio awarded the Bioèxit Prize to Minoryx Therapeutics, a spin-off of the University of Barcelona in Catalonia for the largest biotech funding round of approximately 20 million Euros, and to Palobiofarma for its license agreement with Novartis, being both good examples of this leadership. We start from high-level science and professional teams who are increasingly prepared to compete in a global market. We must continue striving to strengthen collaboration between companies and research centers, universities and hospitals because it is from the Transfer of Knowledge Units that innovation is shared. Only if the knowledge arrives to the company, and if this company decides to invest in it, we will know whether or not the projects are good or not.

- What advice would you give start-ups and small companies to share this success in this scenario?

I think it is especially important that these companies mirror the models that have worked, and also those that have not. They should pay careful attention to industry players who have gone through similar situations to those lived by each entrepreneur. On the other hand, I would recommend that they foster interaction within the sector, and because of this, being part of CataloniaBio is a good bet because one of the aspects that is clear to us in the upcoming years is that we must support younger, less mature projects.

- In March 2015, CataloniaBio relocated its offices to the Parc Científic de Barcelona. What does a setting such as the PCB bring to an entity such a CataloniaBio?

Although our scope of action and representation extends to the entire region of Catalonia, it is in Barcelona and its metropolitan area where most companies and actors working in research and innovation in health and life sciences are located. For us, the PCB is the core of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in our industry, where you can interact and work with all kinds of companies (pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device, bioinformatics, scientific services and other essential support services), within a first-level scientific community. In addition, we highly value PCB´s dynamism and various training initiatives, including networking, counseling and many others the park offers.