On September 29th, 2026, Biocant Park in Cantanhede hosted the Portugal Centro Region BIO-RED Cross-Regional Hackathon, which AccelBio helped organise together with the other Portuguese BIO-RED partners: Biocant Park, INOVA+, and the Região Metropolitana de Coimbra (CIMRC). The event followed a warm-up evening on September 28th, with ice-breaker activities and bilateral matchmaking to welcome participants.

The hackathon builds directly on the ATMP Thematic Lab organised by AccelBio in June, which identified three systemic gaps in the development of advanced therapy medicinal products (ATMPs). Participants were challenged to develop viable, scalable, interregional business models for each of them: making ATMP regulatory expertise accessible, affordable, and reusable for biotech companies; bridging the talent gap between the research laboratory and GMP manufacturing; and making GMP manufacturing capacity more visible and accessible across the ecosystem.

The day began with a welcome from Ana Moreira and Joana Branco of Biocant Park. Our Innovation Manager, João Maia, then presented the challenges generated in the Thematic Lab, followed by a business case briefing by Jorge Figueira from the University of Coimbra. Throughout the day, interregional and multidisciplinary teams, with participants from Portugal, France, Greece, and Lithuania, worked to define their challenge and value proposition, assess viability, market potential, and funding routes, and build a roadmap. In the afternoon, the teams presented their pitches to an international jury, which evaluated them on innovation, technical feasibility, commercial viability, alignment with BIO-RED, interregional added value, and team engagement.

The winning teams will now compete in the Inter-Regional Final Pitch Session on October 26th, 2026, for a place in the BIO-RED Biotech & Pharma Accelerator Programme. We look forward to attending and wish all the teams the best of luck.

Our thanks go to Biocant Park for hosting such a successful and welcoming event, and to all the participants, speakers, experts, and jury members who contributed their knowledge, experience, and perspectives.