Portugal: will the life science sector see upswing amid funding worries?

Portugal: will the life science sector see upswing amid funding worries? By Roohi Mariam Peter 12 minutesmins April 1, 2026 12 minutesmins Share WhatsApp Twitter Linkedin Email Photo credits: Annie Spratt (Unsplash) Newsletter Signup - Under Article / In Page"*" indicates required fieldsInstagramThis field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.Subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest biotech news!By clicking this I agree to receive Labiotech's newsletter and understand that my personal data will be processed according to the Privacy Policy.*Company name*Job title*Business email* Known for its golden beaches and historic trams, Portugal fosters significant innovation. While Portugal’s biotech and life sciences ecosystem may not be as large and varied as in the U.K., Switzerland, or Germany, it’s far from merely an ‘emerging’ one. However, funding gloom needs to be overcome for it to reach its full potential, experts say. Table of contentsLife sciences and biotech in Portugal see sharp rise in recent yearsThe life science sector brought about €29.7 billion ($34.41 billion) and €8.9 billion ($10.31 billion) in gross value added in 2024, according to a report by the Portuguese Trade & Investment Agency. On top of that, the ecosystem consists of about 124,000 companies and has employed more than 268,000 people. According to Joana Branco, executive director of Biocant park in the city of Cantanhede in Portugal, while the sector’s growth has been “organic” over the past two decades, in recent years, a surge in the number of companies and exports has been influenced by the country’s pharmaceutical industry. As the host of BIO-Europe Spring in Portugal last week, the country’s life sciences and biotech sectors have been more prominent, as the event was partly an exhibit of the industry in the region. With various Portuguese biotech startups and universities in attendance, so was Branco’s Biocant, a nonprofit science and technology park that houses nearly 25 startups, a research center, and UC-Biotech, the research and business training infrastructure of the Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology. “Bringing BIO-Europe Spring to Lisbon was something that we’ve been working quite a lot over the years because we felt like every time that we would go to one of these conferences, people would come to us saying, “what is there in Portugal? I don’t know anything in Portugal. Can you tell me more about it?,” and we felt like we weren’t recognized for the potential that we have,” said Branco. “And so, it was so important for us to bring it here so that people could have the opportunity to know our companies; also give the opportunity to smaller companies to be present at one of these events and see and partner and meet other colleagues. I would say that this is a very important milestone for the biotech ecosystem in Portugal.” The Mayor of Lisbon, Carlos Moedas, shared similar feelings about the event venturing to Portugal, stating that there is “no better place” in the world for science, with 1.75% of its gross domestic product (GDP) dedicated to research and development. But as Branco pointed out, a couple of decades ago, the life science scene in Portugal told a different story. Back then, biotech startups were sparse – less than 15 spanning the country – and there was no venture capital (VC) devoted to fortifying the life sciences in the region. In fact, it has been merely three years since Portugal gained its first ever VC earmarked for healthcare and biopharma, Biovance Capital, located in Lisbon. Portugal obtains first life science-focused VC Albeit late to the party, a life science-focused VC means more funding opportunities for the country, which has witnessed its fair share of struggles with securing investment, more so than other hubs in Europe. Fredilson Melo, communications manager of the Portuguese Bioindustry Association (P-BIO), explained that it is still better late than never. “In life science, things are very unpredictable. And they take a lot of time to flourish. You are trying to develop a pharmaceutical product, and it takes around 15 years. So, the return is in the longer spectrum of time. This is very different from other areas, traditional areas where people make investment. So, you need to have people that not only have the understanding of how things work, especially in biological systems, but also how the logistics of doing research in life science works. Now, with a specialized VC fund for biotech, I think it’s the first step for others to see and maybe copy and expand in the area of VC funding for biotech,” said Melo. For Portugal, funding has indeed been the major hurdle, stifling research from being turned to innovation. “Even if we are bringing investors from abroad, it’s still important to have someone for them to syndicate here. So, of course, investment is still one of the major causes that the companies can have a lot of troubles in terms of succeeding and moving into the next phase,” said Branco. This is also felt at the university level, where research is typically at its prime. Luís Silva, head of the Technology Transfer Office at the University of Coimbra, highlighted that access to venture capital and money to scale up technologies created by the Portuguese research and the scientific community is lacking. “You can take the research until a certain point, but usually for the investment, you need, in some phases, like one or two or three million euros. If you don’t have this kind of investment, it’s very difficult to reach certain levels of maturity. One of the impacts is that it delays the translation of the technologies to the market a lot,” said Silva. “Traditionally, research in Portugal has been very, very strong. And over the years, that is a reflection on the number of companies, but this translation to the industry hasn’t been very efficient, which is something that we have realized overtime. We try to work closely with the academic institutions also to try to speed up technology transfer.”Owing to this, founders and researchers take their ideas elsewhere, outside of Portugal, for a chance at scoring funding. But that’s still taxing as they would be competing with innovators around the world for the same pot, which has been drying up as the sector faces a funding drought globally. “That’s why we need more support and more venture capital in Portugal to speed things up,” said Silva. And that is not all. He added: “One of the big challenges is that Portugal is a small country, and so we have an additional challenge to reach the global market.” Biocant and P-BIO: key players in bolstering Portugal’s life science and biotech sector That’s where university programs and organizations like Biocant and P-BIO as well as government initiatives aim to bridge the gap. Melo said: “What we try to provide is some training for our researchers who want to be founders of new spinouts. We try to develop different programs in terms proof of concepts, train them how to pitch their technology, and how to measure the economic value.” The university set up a gene therapy research center – the first of its kind – the GeneT: Centre of Excellence in Gene Therapy in Portugal, which bagged €38 million ($43.96 million) in European and national funding for six years two years ago. The goal has been to develop gene therapies for severe and untreatable rare diseases. “Gene therapy is now receiving these funds to improve the critical mass in this field and have their own facilities,” said Silva. “This gene therapy project is in rare diseases. There are some rare diseases that they have been studying for many years now that they want to explore even more and potentially create new spinouts or join together a unique platform to address different rare diseases.” Suggested Articles The six biotech companies in Portugal you should know about in 2026 BIO-Europe Spring 2026: partnership event brings funding hope to biotechs Budget blues: where are cell and gene therapies heading? Eight areas where gene therapy shines Rare Disease Day: is a regulatory overhaul what the therapeutic field needs? Another R&D project that the university has undertaken is in aging. The university had spun off the Multidisciplinary Institute of Ageing (MIA-Portugal) six years ago, the first institute in Southern Europe specializing in the biology of ageing. This has been backed by Horizon Europe, the European Union flagship scientific research initiative to help develop a sustainable society in Europe as well as potentially solve public health crises that include pandemic preparedness and cancer. Besides funding, Portugal would like to grasp visibility. It has done so with BIO-Europe Spring this year, but it also has its annual BioMeet congress run by P-BIO to drive collaboration held in September. “All our members gather there. In the last couple of years, we have gathered a lot more of international players there as well,” said Miguel Mondragão, health project manager at P-BIO. Can new policies make a difference? Meanwhile, new policies to encourage both scientists to build technologies and funders to invest, are being shaped. A new bill to lead clinical trials in Portugal is in the works. The latest update ensures that the framework fully aligns with EU Clinical Trials Regulation (CTR) to harmonize it with the latter. This can draw drug developers located outside Portugal to hold trials there. Branco believes that working together as several entities within a larger ecosystem can help make a splash. “Traditionally, research in Portugal has been very, very strong. And over the years, that is a reflection on the number of companies, but this translation to the industry hasn’t been very efficient, which is something that we have realized overtime. We try to work closely with the academic institutions also to try to speed up technology transfer,” said Branco. Incentive schemes surrounding PhD research at biotechs have also been implemented. The Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) called on researchers to submit their proposals with a budget of €145 million ($167.64 million) in mind for this year. Around 1,600 scholarships—50 more than in 2025 – would be awarded to applicants, who can then go on to band with startups hospitals, museums, and NGOs. Melo thinks that this could help alleviate the burden of paying for research at biotech companies. Innovation not stalling; LXbio to publish phase 2 results As the record holder for the highest number of patent applications at the European Patent Office (EPO), with the biotech and healthcare sector grabbing between 30 and 40 patents, despite funding woes, it’s a positive sign that innovation has not ceased. mRNA technology pioneer BioNtech’s acquisition of Óbidos-based cancer care company CellmAbs’ preclinical antibody marked the first billion-dollar deal in the life science sector for Portugal back in 2024. This came after global CDMO Recipharm’s buyout of Oeiras-based GenIbet, which manufactured biologics, vectors, and microbiome therapies, in 2022. Further, antibody discovery-focused FairJourney Bio, situated in Porto, just launched its cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM) services, an imaging technique that reveals the structures of biological molecules, in the U.S. in January, putting the region on the map once again. Meanwhile, life science startups are making their way too, although they haven’t crowded Portugal yet. Lisbon-based LXbio is developing antibody and bacteriophage therapies to fight resistant infections, with its main focus on diabetic foot infections at present. “Patients with infections in the late stage have to have their leg removed, most times. We created a bio solution, a solution with a mixture of phages for different types of infections,” said André Soares, business developer at LxBio Pharmaceuticals. The cocktail of five different phages established safety and tolerability in phase 1 trials. Results from a phase 2b study, which trialed the drug in around 80 patients in the U.S. and India, will be announced in the next two weeks. At BIO-Europe Spring 2026, LxBio was scouting for partnerships. Soares, like Branco and Melo, believes that a major stymie to Portugal’s life science sector is funding, which leads to an ecosystem that seems fragmented. “You have a lot of companies doing quite a lot of good work. But because the funding is so scarce, they are basically trying to survive. And they look outside for partnership opportunities because it’s where the money is,” said Soares. As Portugal clings on to its billion-dollar BioNtech deal as proof of its R&D talent, organizing events like BIO-Europe Spring could see these collaborations replicated soon. Mondragão said: “I believe that this event (BIO-Europe Spring) can work as a very good stepping stone to let the world know about the Portuguese biotech ecosystem and how it has been growing.” With visibility hoped to attract capital, it could capture interest from investors. Soares thinks that more investment could diminish the fragmentation. He said: “Even though we are a small country, we are still the gateway to Europe coming from the U.S. and we are located in a very nice location. Nowadays, you see that the connections to Lisbon and the connections to Portugal are increasing. We have a very skilled workforce and the cost of living, it’s still not comparable to Central Europe. So, we are expecting this to be a good year for us.” This article is reserved for subscribers Subscribe for free to continue reading.Enter your details to log in or subscribe. 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