Patient Barcelona. Diagnosis: Regulatory Overdose, by Antonio Arellano
El pasado 14 de noviembre, en un panel sobre la Barcelona de la medicina, la farmacia y la ciencia, con la participación de Anita Gómez (Bayer), Adrià Escolà (Hospital Sant Joan de Déu), Patricia Pozo-Rosich (Hospital Vall d’Hebron), Albert Valeta (Happy Innova) e Irene Coll (VHIO), se lanzó una propuesta reveladora: organizar una hackathon en la que los participantes no fueran emprendedores ni investigadores, sino los propios responsables políticos, llamados a resolver los retos que hoy impiden que Barcelona se sitúe en el top 1 de ciudades líderes del mundo en salud y ciencia. El diagnóstico es claro: Barcelona no carece de talento ni de conocimiento, sino bloqueos estructurales que siguen sin abordarse con la profundidad y la urgencia necesarias.
What are we doing right?
Barcelona has managed to bring together highly qualified talent within an attractive, collaborative environment. Universities, hospitals, research centers, and companies coexist in a degree of proximity that is rare on a global scale. As a result, many professionals develop into hybrid profiles, which are key to innovation in health.
We are also able to attract international talent. Barcelona is cool, and people who are cool want to come to Barcelona. The city has become the ultimate expression of the Mediterranean State of Mind thanks to its quality of life, climate, gastronomy, and culture. More and more people want to live the Barcelona experience.
It’s also worth noting that the city’s legacy has played a role. Centuries-old hospitals such as the Clínic or Sant Pau, beyond providing care, have also served as hubs for knowledge and scientific transfer. Nor should we forget the network of local pharmaceutical companies that, for years, acted as a magnet for multinationals. But we can’t afford to be complacent, this is only momentum, and we need to keep pushing.
What are we doing wrong?
The panel’s consensus was clear: Barcelona knows how to attract and create talent, but it does not know how to retain it. Many startups are born here, but when they grow, they move elsewhere. Many projects are incubated in hospitals and research centers, but they die in the so-called “valley of death”, the space between idea and viable product, where funding, structure, and support are lacking.
Taxation and regulation emerge as recurring obstacles. Europe, and Spain in particular, impose lengthy, complex, and costly processes to bring innovation to market. Meanwhile, other ecosystems offer greater agility, more capital, and a higher tolerance for risk. The result is that many strategic decisions are made elsewhere, leaving Barcelona relegated to a secondary role.
A lack of professionalization at certain critical stages was also highlighted: technology transfer offices with high turnover, scientific entrepreneurs without strong business support, and a shortage of profiles capable of acting as bridges between science, business, and regulation.
The challenges of the next 20 years to become number 1
If Barcelona wants to aspire to playing in the global top tier, it must face several structural challenges. The first is to invest more and better in research, with larger-scale and more stable funding, comparable to that of Northern European countries. We have a habit of comparing ourselves to Europe; let’s do so across the board. We need greater financial muscle.
The second challenge is to simplify and streamline regulationwithout sacrificing safety. From a municipal perspective, we need to explore the levers that can help ensure regulation is no longer seen as a problem. Let the local level serve as a seed and, in a way, as a guide for how regulation might be eased at higher levels.
The third challenge is to build centers of decision-making, not just execution. As long as major headquarters and centers of power remain elsewhere, Barcelona will depend on strategies defined in other places. Cases such as the loss of the European Medicines Agency should serve as lessons in where we have fallen short.
Young people in Barcelona are ready to take on and work toward the challenges that can place the city at the top. Don’t be afraid of our freshness, make the most of it.
Possible solutions
The solutions are not simple, but they are within reach if political will is combined with the ability to execute. Beyond grand strategic plans, Barcelona needs concrete mechanisms that connect talent, capital, and public decision-making: agile public–private collaboration, pathways that ease the transition from research to market, and smart use of municipal, fiscal, contractual, and administrative leeway to reduce friction and retain projects.
The diagnosis is clear: Barcelona does not lack talent or knowledge, but rather faces structural bottlenecks that still have not been addressed with the necessary depth and urgency.
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