Diseases, drugs, cell therapies… The Basque Country has an important network of companies related to the world of bioscience which, despite their young age, have already received prestigious international recognition. This field of research has become a strategic commitment which the Biozientziak Gipuzkoa Foundazioa intends to continue promoting. In this respect, it will lend its support to three new entrepreneurial initiatives dedicated to developing innovative surgical techniques, cancer drugs and an allergy detection test.
That’s what the General Deputy, Markel Olano, and the President of Kutxa Fundazioa, Manuel Beraza, announced yesterday at a conference in the Miramon Technology Park with the participation of different representatives from the field of territorial healthcare.
Ten years ago, the Basque Country had virtually no companies related to the bioscience framework. In fact, 40% of the 70 companies currently working in this field are less than five years old. Today Gipuzkoa has 37 companies, most of them small and concentrated in San Sebastián and Arrasate. Almost half of them focus on healthcare areas. As stressed by Olano, supporting these kind of projects “not only means laying the foundations of the economy and jobs of the future”, but also investing “in our society’s wellbeing”.
With these words, he opened the conference which, entitled “Biozientziak Gipuzkoa Foundation, your bio-health ally”, enjoyed a talk by the CIC Biogune researcher, Arkaitz Carracedo, who analysed the latest scientific innovations in the fight against cancer. “To advance we must innovate technologically, and to innovate we must research”, said the Basque scientist who led the group responsible for identifying the protein linked to the most aggressive type of breast cancer. After his talk, a number of experts participated in a round table on the challenges of bio-entrepreneurship in the territory.
The Provincial Deputy for Economic Promotion, Ainhoa Aizpuru, and the General Director of Kutxa Fundazioa, Carlos Ruiz, presented the work carried out by the Foundation. At the end of 2011, the Provincial Council and Kutxa created the Biozientziak Gipuzkoa Foundation, whose relaunch started two years ago with a redefinition of its statutes, adapting them to today’s environment and assigning it a budget of half a million euros, a sum increased to one million with the contribution distributed between the two institutions.
Olano and Beraza advanced the names of the three new business initiatives to receive the Foundation’s support: the Gipuzkoan startups Deneb Medical, Innoprick and Quimatryx, each of which will receive 250,000 euros by way of participation loans to help them to continue growing and developing their activity “with a direct influence on the wellbeing of people”.
“We know that science, technological research and innovation are, in the 21st century, the basis of entrepreneurial development, an essential part of any territory’s pillars of progress. This is precisely what we want for Gipuzkoa, and is what lies behind the origin of this joint proposal made by the Provincial Council and Kutxa”, said Beraza.
Biozientziak Gipuzkoa, following its relaunch in late 2016, also supports the work of the medical company, Patia Diabetes, which develops tools for the early detection of said disease.
Source | Noticias de Gipuzkoa
