He was born in Balsareny (Barcelona) in 1957. He studied chemistry in the University of Barcelona where he performed his Doctoral thesis under the supervision of professors Fèlix Serratosa and Miquel A. Pericàs. After a post-doctoral stage in the "University of Pennsylvania" (Philadelphia) under the supervision of Prof. Amos B. Smith III he returned to the Department of Organic Chemistry as assistant professor (profesor Titular) on 1988. In June 2003 he was promoted to full professor (catedrático de Química Orgánica) of the University of Barcelona. His main research area is asymmetric synthesis. He has been working in the synthesis of biologically active products such as amino acids and amino alcohols and in the development of enantioselective versions of the Pauson-Khand reaction. In all these fields he has directed 27 doctoral theses and co-authored more than 215 publications in international journals.

He is co-founder of Enantia, S.L. a spin-off company devoted to the development of new synthetic processes for pharmaceutical products. Created in 2003 nowadays it has 40 employees, half of them with a PhD in chemistry.