Institute for Research in Biomedicine

What Institute for Research in Biomedicine does

IRB Barcelona (Fundació Institut de Recerca Biomèdica) is an independent, non-profit biomedical research foundation founded in 2005 and headquartered at the Parc Científic de Barcelona, Spain. The institute operates approximately 30 research groups organized into three programmes (Cancer Science, Mechanisms of Disease, and Aging and Metabolism), supported by 9 core facilities including Spain's first end-to-end Spatial Omics Platform. Its research combines molecular biology, genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and computational biology, with a particular focus on cancer metastasis, ageing, and metabolic disease. The institute serves the global scientific community through peer-reviewed publications, trains early-career scientists via its International PhD Programme (IRB-DREAM and IRB-DRIVE fellowships), and operates public engagement initiatives such as the Crazy About Biomedicine programme.

IRB Barcelona generates the majority of its funding through competitive research grants (European Union H2020 and Horizon Europe programmes, ERC Starting/Consolidator/Advanced awards, Spanish national and Catalan regional agencies) and strategic philanthropic support from the BBVA Foundation, Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC), and "la Caixa" Foundation. Revenue is also derived from technology transfer through a portfolio of nine spin-off companies (including Omnia Molecular, iProteos, Inbiomotion, Nostrum BioDiscovery, Ona Therapeutics, Gate2Brain, Nuage Therapeutics, ChemSift, and HelixAI), licensing arrangements, public donations via the MetastasisChallenge campaign, and merchandise e-commerce. Industrial partnerships with pharmaceutical companies (Almirall, Sanofi) within the MD4SB consortium extend its applied research footprint.

IRB Barcelona is governed by a Board of Trustees including representatives from the Generalitat de Catalunya, BBVA Foundation, GC Salut, and the University of Barcelona, and operates as a founding member of the Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST). It has held the Severo Ochoa Excellence Award continuously since 2011 (renewed 2016, 2020, 2023) and is a recognized CERCA centre. The current Director, Francesc Posas, was appointed in 2018.

Name

Institute for Research in Biomedicine

Legal name

Fundació Institut de Recerca Biomèdica

Website

https://irbbarcelona.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2005

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

251–500 employees

Short description

IRB Barcelona is an independent non-profit biomedical research foundation in Barcelona, Spain, conducting fundamental and translational research in cancer, ageing, and metabolism across 30 research groups and 9 core facilities, supported by competitive grants, philanthropy, and a portfolio of nine spin-offs.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Biomedical Research Services

NAICS

Research and Development in Biotechnology (except Nanobiotechnology) (541714), Scientific Research and Development Services (5417)

SIC

Services-Commercial Physical & Biological Research (8731), Services-Testing Laboratories (8734)

akta.pro industry

PRIMARYEDAHAGAI

Biomedical Sciences & Medical Research Institutes (University-Based)

Education/Higher Education (Colleges & Universities)/Medical & Health Sciences Universities

Keywords

• Biomedical research
• Cancer research
• Translational research
• Structural biology
• PhD training

Headquarters

HQ city

Barcelona

HQ country

Spain

HQ region

Europe

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure, Operations

Revenue model

1. Research Grants and Funding: Competitive research grants from European Union (H2020, Horizon Europe, ERC), national agencies (MICIU/AEI), regional government (Generalitat de Catalunya), and international funding bodies. Includes ERC awards in Starting, Consolidator, and Advanced categories.
2. Foundation and Association Support: Strategic funding from BBVA Foundation, Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC), and 'la Caixa' Foundation for specific research programmes and initiatives.
3. Technology Transfer and Licensing: Revenue from spin-off companies, licensing of technologies, and research agreements with pharmaceutical companies and hospitals.
4. Donations and Fundraising: Public donations through MetastasisChallenge campaign and other fundraising initiatives, with all profits directed to research activities.
5. Merchandise Sales: E-commerce sales of branded merchandise including retometastasis.com, reptemetastasi.com, and metastasischallenge.com, with proceeds supporting research.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels7 records

Core offering

IRB Barcelona is a non-profit research foundation conducting fundamental and applied biomedical research across cancer, aging, and metabolism. It delivers scientific discoveries through approximately 30 research groups and 9 core facilities, supports PhD training via its International PhD Programme, transfers technology through spin-off companies, and engages in science outreach and public fundraising. Its outputs are research publications, trained researchers, licensed technologies, and spin-off companies rather than commercial products.

Product overview

IRB Barcelona is a biomedical research institute (Fundació Institut de Recerca Biomèdica) that functions as a multi-disciplinary research center rather than a product company. It brings together approximately 30 research groups and 9 core facilities organized into three main research programmes: Cancer Science, Mechanisms of Disease, and Aging and Metabolism. The institute offers educational services through its PhD Programme in Biomedicine (including IRB-DREAM and IRB-DRIVE fellowships), operates e-commerce platforms for merchandise sales supporting cancer research, conducts science outreach programs (Crazy About Biomedicine, Open Days), and drives innovation through technology transfer and spin-offs (9 total including HelixAI, Nuage Therapeutics, Gate2Brain). Research infrastructure includes advanced platforms such as Spain's first end-to-end Spatial Omics Platform. All commercial profits are devoted entirely to supporting the institute's research mission.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• MetastasisChallenge: A fundraising campaign to rally social support for research into metastasis, the main cause of death from cancer, aiming to raise €5 million.
• Crazy About Biomedicine
• IRB DREAM Programme

Quantifiable outcome

• 8 successful spin-offs created since 2007
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers6 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability5 records

Feature4 records

Partnerships

16 partnerships are on record, tiered core and minor.

• Spanish Association Against Cancer (AECC)coreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2021Pioneering collaboration through the AECC Excellence Program: Metastasis, endowed with €2 million over 4 years. Takes multidisciplinary approach to metastasis research, focusing on generating knowledge and applying it to innovative prognostic and therapeutic strategies. Also provides additional project funding to multiple IRB Barcelona labs.
• "la Caixa" FoundationcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2021Supporting Translational Research and Innovation Programme (TRIP) through CaixaResearch Clinical Translation initiative, in collaboration with the Department of Health of the Government of Catalonia. Funding multiple drug development and therapeutic programmes including STOPTauPATHOL, Drug4NASH, and others.
• BBVA FoundationcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2014Key strategic partner since IRB Barcelona's founding in 2005. Provides fundamental support for advancing pioneering cancer and metastasis research and fostering knowledge exchange through international scientific events. Since 2014, BBVA Foundation has served on IRB Barcelona's Board of Trustees, contributing significantly to the Institute's strategic direction and objectives.
• Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer CenterminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerInternational collaboration agreement for scientific exchange and research partnerships in cancer research.
• Tohoku UniversityminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerInternational collaboration agreement for research partnerships and exchange of scientific expertise.
• Hokkaido UniversityminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerInternational collaboration agreement for research partnerships and exchange of scientific expertise.
• Radboud Institute for Molecular Life SciencesminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerInternational collaboration agreement for research partnerships in molecular life sciences.
• National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerInternational collaboration agreement for research partnerships in biological sciences.
• Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology (BIST)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerFounding member since 2015. Alliance of leading centres to foster collaboration and excellence. Provides boost to international visibility and positioning.
• ELIXIRminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerEuropean research infrastructure for life science data. IRB Barcelona participates in this large-scale scientific consortium.
• Euro-BioimagingminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerEuropean research infrastructure for biomedical imaging. IRB Barcelona involved as part of large-scale scientific endeavour.
• EU-OPENSCREENminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerEuropean open access platform for chemical biology and drug discovery services. IRB Barcelona participates as a partner site.
• AlmirallminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPharmaceutical partner in MD4SB project coordinating 25 partners across 8 countries. Provides feedback and evaluates practical usefulness of dynamic description platform in industrial settings.
• SanofiminorStrategic or Co-development PartnerPharmaceutical partner in MD4SB project for dynamic description in structural biology. Evaluates platform for industrial applicability.
• ICREAcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerInstitutional research partner and co-founder of multiple spin-offs including Nuage Therapeutics, Ona Therapeutics, and Gate2Brain.
• UPC (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerCo-founder of HelixAI spin-off, combining expertise for AI-driven biomedical data analysis.

Scale indicators10 records

Recent moves10 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG): Barcelona-based international biomedical research institute conducting fundamental genomics and systems biology research. Highly comparable as a peer Severo Ochoa/BIST centre with a similar mix of ERC-funded PIs, international talent, and translational activity.
• Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO): Spain's leading national cancer research centre in Madrid, also a Severo Ochoa Centre of Excellence. Directly comparable given overlapping cancer focus, similar scale (500+ researchers), comparable grant funding model, and parallel spin-off creation track record.
• The Francis Crick Institute: London-based biomedical discovery institute with ~1,500 scientists focused on cancer, ageing, and infection. Comparable in mission, scale (multi-hundred research staff), interdisciplinary structure, and translational pipeline, though larger and more recently established.
• Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB) Mainz: German research institute focused on epigenetics, DNA repair, and quantitative biology. Comparable in size, ERC-grant-driven model, and focus on fundamental biomedical mechanisms with translational spin-off activity.
• Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC): Berlin-based Helmholtz Centre for molecular medicine research, similar in scale (~1,600 staff) and basic-to-translational research focus. Comparable as a German government-funded biomedical institute with overlapping disease-area priorities and core facility infrastructure.
• The Scripps Research Institute: US non-profit biomedical research organization with strong focus on chemistry, structural biology, and drug discovery. Comparable in mission (fundamental science with translational pipeline), spin-off creation, and core facility infrastructure model.
• Centre de Regulació Genòmica (CRG): Barcelona-based peer institution; effectively the same entity listed first as Centre for Genomic Regulation. Already covered as the closest geographic and structural peer.

Broad incumbents

• European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL): Intergovernmental European research organization for molecular life sciences with multiple sites. Comparable as a broader European biomedical research umbrella with shared membership in EU consortia (ELIXIR, Euro-Bioimaging) and overlapping basic/applied research mission.
• Institut Pasteur: Paris-based private non-profit foundation for biomedical research with global reach. Comparable as a non-profit research foundation with ERC-equivalent funding, international talent base, and long track record of spin-off creation in life sciences.
• Salk Institute for Biological Studies: California-based non-profit basic research institute with ~850 researchers focused on cancer, ageing, and metabolism — directly overlapping IRB Barcelona's research programmes. Comparable as a top-tier basic-research non-profit with technology-transfer and spin-off activity.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• YouTubeyoutube.com/user/IRBBarcelona
• Facebookfacebook.com/irbbarcelona
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/irbbarcelona
• Instagraminstagram.com/irbbarcelona
• Xx.com/IRBBarcelona

Compliance4 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles4 records

Subsidiaries9 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds1 record

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about Institute for Research in Biomedicine