The Institute for Biomedical Research (IRB Barcelona) was founded in October 2005 by the Government of Catalonia (Generalitat de Catalunya), the University of Barcelona (UB) and the Barcelona Science Park (Parc Científic de Barcelona). IRB Barcelona is an independent, non-profit research institution engaged in basic and applied biomedical science, that aims to improve quality of life by applying advances in this field.

IRB Barcelona is located in the Barcelona Science Park, a centre in which first-class public research converges with the private sector in a stimulating, vanguard scientific environment

The Institute seeks to promote multidisciplinary research of excellence at the interface between biology, chemistry and medicine, to foster collaborations with local organisations and international research institutes, and to provide high-level training in the biomedical sciences to staff, students and visitors.

Research at IRB Barcelona is organized into five programmes, selected following criteria of scientific opportunity. These five programmes, which are complementary and synergistic with biomedical clinical fields, are: Cell and Developmental Biology, Oncology, Molecular Medicine, Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology and Structural and Computational Biology.