Spanish Spin-Offs

Focusing on a specialty—such as human-tissue samples—creates a source of new companies

by Emily Waltz

Of all the things that a city could be known for, a solid supply of human-tissue samples is one of the least sexy. But it is this feature—combined with a strong medicinal-chemistry sector—that helped make Barcelona a hub for biotech spin-outs focused on oncology.

Take, for example, Oryzon, a nine-year-old biotech company housed in the Barcelona Science Park. Its founder, Carlos Buesa, originally envisioned a microarray services–based company. But as he developed his business plan, he realized that a business model better suited to Barcelona was one that focused on biomarker discovery and cancer therapies. The company now has six diagnostic projects and four therapies in its cancer pipeline. "Cancer is the main topic here because of the very strong medicinal chemistry and access to tissue samples," he says.

“ Cancer is the main topic here because of the very strong medicinal chemistry and access to tissue samples ”

Oryzon's researchers need several hundred tumor samples every year to conduct their experiments. To ensure a consistent supply, they developed strong ties with surgeons at nearby research hospitals. "Physicians and hospital ethics committees have close relationships with small communities," Buesa says. "We have one-on-one relationships with them." Buesa says a location in proximity to the hospitals is important not only for the ease of transporting the tumor samples, but also for increasing the possibility for scientific collaborations with clinical researchers at such hospitals.

For instance, Barcelona's Vall d'Hebron Hospital sees 40 percent of all breast-cancer patients in the Catalonia region. José Baselga, a clinical researcher, helped transform the oncology department at Vall d'Hebron from a few shabby consulting rooms in the mid-1990s to running more than 55 clinical and pre-clinical trials of cancer therapies.

A number of spin-outs have been inspired by Barcelona's academic medicinal-chemistry programs as well. "It's had quite an impact," says Montserrat Vendrell, director of BioCat, a biotech industry organization for the Catalonia region. Some strong influences include the chemistry programs at the University of Barcelona and the Institut d'Investigacions Químiques i Ambientals de Barcelona within the Spanish Higher Council of Research, known as CSIC. Moreover, biotech start-ups such as Crystax Pharmaceuticals, Palau Pharma and GP Pharm—all located in the Barcelona Science Park—rose out of this research sector of the city.

Other regions in Spain haven't had the luxury of clinical-research programs or existing pharmaceutical industries to attract biotech start-ups. Instead, some adjusted their traditional industries to bring in life-science clients. Basque Country, for instance, has strong manufacturing and engineering sectors, and some companies in these industries have begun making detection systems and machines for personalized medicine. In addition, Basque Country's Biobide, created in 2003, integrates expertise from the region's robotics and manufacturing industries to conduct automated high-throughput screening of potential drugs. "We found it difficult to see development of biotech in Basque Country," says María Aguirre, who runs the region's biotech industry organization, BioBasque. "So our idea was to build on our relative strengths." Now medically oriented biotech companies are popping up in the region, most of which focus on regenerative and personalized medicine, she says.