The future arrival of the Clínic in the upper part of Diagonal has brought into the spotlight an area that was already in full effervescence and has now received a definitive boost to become a major biomedical hub, extending beyond the borders of the Catalan capital. Many years remain until the hospital is installed on the sports fields of the Universitat de Barcelona (UB), but the other agents are not going to wait that long to catch up. There are the Parc Científic de Barcelona (PCB) and the Hospital Sant Joan de Déu, both immersed in expansion processes because they have run out of space, but the Barcelona Supercomputing Center (BSC) is also nearby, accustomed to announcing giant steps very often.
After many discussions about where the hospital, which had become boxed in the Eixample's network, should be expanded, the Clínic unblocked its future by opting to move to the Diagonal campus. As its general director, Josep Maria Campistol, recalls, more than 30 years ago this possibility was already put on the table, but it was eventually rejected. Time has proven the proposal right, and it will be there where a 300,000 square meter complex will be built. It will not be, by any means, a move from today to tomorrow, and initial estimates calculate that it will not be a reality until 2035.
Meanwhile, the Clínic is putting everything in order. In its next location, it not only wants to gain space, but also wants to integrate assistance, teaching, research, and innovation more. To do this, the hospital is working together with the UB and the August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute (Idibaps) to define a new functional plan that allows for a more polyhedral way of working with greater participation from professionals and patients. This month, they plan to launch the tender to draft it, aimed at national and international consultants, with the forecast that they will start working on it from September. This leg of the future Clínic will join the architectural definition of the hospital city. A dozen young architects are dedicating themselves to this with an innovative formula. They are doing it through a master's degree from the UB and the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) that will extend throughout this academic year.
Both paths will eventually converge to launch the international architectural competition in autumn 2026, coinciding with the world capital of architecture. "We are underway," remarks Campistol, as are the Generalitat and the city councils of Barcelona, L'Hospitalet, and Esplugues de Llobregat. The three cities must define how the immense plot (almost 10 hectares) where the hospital and its surroundings will be located, between the Ronda de Dalt, Avenida Diagonal, and the Collblanc road, will be urbanized. "The Clínic will change the physiognomy of the Diagonal. There is good harmony among all administrations; we are all reading it as a great opportunity, and much excitement has been generated. We are moving in the right direction," defends the doctor. "It will be an operation that will transform the city and constitute a very advanced pole of biomedicine, like a second Olympics," adds the rector of the UB, Joan Guàrdia.
Very close to Sant Joan de Déu
An opportunity that all those already present in the upper area of the Diagonal want to shape, knowing that there are still gaps to fill in a sector that researches a lot and does it very well, but still has problems reaching the market. "There is a conjunction of different organizations that needs to be strengthened. We need biotech and pharmaceutical companies to transfer knowledge to the industry and be able to respond to the patient," says the director of Infrastructure at Sant Joan de Déu, Albert Bota. New initiatives are moving in this direction, such as facilitating SMEs' access to technologies like AI, one of the latest projects announced by the BSC. For the mother and child hospital, the extension of the green metro line beyond the Zona Universitària stop will also be key, something they hope the Clínic will facilitate. "All the major hospitals in Barcelona have the metro at their door except us," laments Bota.
Sant Joan de Déu will be very close to the future Clínic ---only 250 meters away but with an insurmountable barrier like the highway--- and they are already thinking about possible synergies. Long before the new neighbor moves in, Sant Joan de Déu will have the Unicas center, which will be dedicated to rare diseases. They will gain in surface area (16,000 square meters) but will also have more space in the current facilities, where different buildings, dedicated to hospitalization, outpatient consultations, and a pediatric oncology center, coexist in 89,000 square meters. The construction of the Unicas center began last year and the building is expected to be operational by the end of 2026. Next door, framed within the project known as Porta Diagonal, a 100-meter-high tower is being built, which is expected to include hotel rooms and also apartments for long stays, something key for Sant Joan de Déu families. Before opting for the Estel building, AstraZeneca was interested in these spaces to locate its global innovation hub.
Beyond Barcelona
Given this scenario, cities neighboring the Diagonal campus such as Esplugues de Llobregat and Sant Joan Despí are raising their hands to capitalize on a sector that can allow them to reindustrialize with skilled jobs and further reconnect with the Catalan capital. "We have a clear opportunity to promote health sciences and what we have to do is create the conditions for things to happen. In the end, it is private initiative that comes if an ecosystem has been created where it feels comfortable," says the mayor of Esplugues, Eduard Sanz. The city wants to take advantage not only of its proximity to the future Clínic but also of the tradition of having hosted companies in the sector such as Salvat or Ferrer to attract new investments, knowing that Barcelona has become too small and needs to expand.
"It's like an oil slick. The Diagonal is extending towards Esplugues and Sant Joan Despí. The Diagonal health axis does not end when Barcelona does," agrees the director of the PCB, Maria Terrades. They know this well from this public facility that hosts research institutes, but also small and large companies, from a spin-off created by recent graduates to more mature companies such as Hipra, Reig Jofre, and Laboratorios Ordesa.
One of its great successes has been Stat-Dx, a small startup that was born in its facilities in 2010 and ended up being acquired by the German multinational Qiagen. Now, the group has decided to locate a global research and development (R&D) center for infectious diseases in Esplugues, where it will concentrate 400 workers. It has done so on the land that years ago was occupied by the old Braun factory, from which came the minipimers and juicers that were in many homes until the economic crisis closed the plant.
Qiagen is about to leave the laboratories that have seen it grow in the PCB, highly coveted spaces in the complex, 100% occupied, and this when the Clínic is not yet a few minutes' walk away. In its 100,000 square meters, 3,500 workers and a hundred entities are housed. "We are completely full, we don't have a single free centimeter," Terrades has been repeating for some time. Given this demand, the complex is immersed in an expansion process that is beginning to get on track. First, the science park has a pending piece to develop in its facilities. These are almost 2,000 square meters that will be allocated to dry laboratories, and the adaptation works are expected to begin in early 2027, with the aim that companies can move in a year later. In a few days, the architectural firm that will design it will be chosen.
In parallel, a building located directly in front of the PCB, the headquarters of the Escola de Noves Tecnologies Interactives (ENTI), will be demolished, which will free up a plot where a 10,000 square meter building will be constructed. Construction is expected to begin in 2028 and tenants to move in in 2029. The new block is expected to house the Institut de Bioenginyeria de Catalunya (Ibec), currently located in the science park and experiencing strong growth, especially after its alliance with the Fraunhofer Institute, Europe's largest organization dedicated to applied research. For a year now, the German institute has had its headquarters in the PCB.
Private initiative begins to join in
Seeing how the PCB was doing, an investment group like Stoneshield Capital, co-founded by Felipe Morenés Botín, son of banker Ana Botín, and Juan Pepa, was quick to join. The real estate asset manager has been involved in science and health for a few years now, first in Madrid and then it arrived in Barcelona with the Basid campus. Basically, their bet consists of replicating the PCB model, creating private scientific hubs and making laboratories and offices available to companies, adding the option of being able to enable factories if they need them.
As of today, the Basid campus has five buildings totaling 60,000 square meters and has capacity for 3,000 workers. "Not only did we want to be as close as possible to the northern part of Diagonal, but we also wanted to settle in an area with tradition in the health sector so as not to start from scratch. In addition, we are on industrial land, which allows us to accompany companies until the end," remarks Pilar Gil, co-CEO of Deeplabs, the company that owns the Basid campus. Most of the spaces are in Esplugues, although the large piece is the Bayer headquarters in Sant Joan Despí (25,000 square meters), where the pharmaceutical company maintains its central offices for Spain but has come to share space with other companies.