Barcelona hosted on November 26th, 2025, the 3rd National Conference on Clinical Research in Primary Care, which brought together more than 150 attendees and nearly twenty expert speakers to analyse and share the opportunities that clinical research promoted from primary care represents for patients, researchers, managers, healthcare professionals and the pharmaceutical industry.

The conference was promoted by Farmaindustria and held in collaboration with Xartec Salut, the network that acts as a catalyst for R&D&I in the field of health technologies in Catalonia, and of which the Primary and Community Care Innovation Group (GrInnAPiC) of the IDIAPJGol is a member.

The opening lecture was delivered by Josep Basora, director of IDIAPJGol and member of the Advisory Council for Primary Care of the Department of Health, with the presentation “Experience and future challenges of clinical trials”.

Raising the visibility of clinical research

Two years after Farmaindustria presented the Guide of Good Practice Recommendations for Promoting Clinical Research in Primary Care (ICAP Guide), the meeting served to share the main advances and initiatives carried out since then and to present the first Map and the first Observatory of clinical research in primary care. These have been developed in collaboration with the seventeen autonomous communities with the aim of giving visibility to the clinical research activity undertaken over the last three years in primary care centres across the country.

The ICAP Map shows which primary care centres conduct clinical trials in each region, what space they have allocated for research, how many projects they participate in, how many clinical trials they are currently running, and in which phase these are.

Meanwhile, the ICAP Observatory analyses two of the recommendations arising from the ICAP Guide: the development of a specific regional strategy for research in primary care, and the digitalisation, integration of real-world data and decentralised elements in primary care, key areas for the development of clinical trials that will enable more centres and more patients to participate in research.

Additionally, accompanying both documents, a new annex to the ICAP Guide has been published regarding document management for the initiation of clinical trials with medicines in primary care. It is based on the recommendations of the Spanish Agency of Medicines and Medical Devices (AEMPS) included in the instruction document for conducting clinical trials in Spain, with the aim of facilitating the expansion of trials to any primary care centre that meets the established requirements.

The Map and Observatory of Clinical Research in Primary Care, as well as the document on Document-Management for the Initiation of Clinical Trials with Medicines in Primary Care, are available here.