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The Basque Biosalud cluster presented the strategic pillars of its new action plan and the new corporate identity of the organization last Wednesday, February 28, at the BAT Tower in the capital of Bizkaia.
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BHC launches its new Strategic Plan 2024-2027 with the aim of consolidating the entire health sector value chain in the Basque Country, which would represent a qualitative leap since its establishment in 2010.
The Basque Health Cluster (BHC) -composed of more than 100 Basque firms in the field of Biosciences and Biohealth in the Basque Country- presented its new Strategic Plan 2024-2027 as well as its new corporate identity on Wednesday, February 28, at the BAT Tower in the capital of Bizkaia. Among the strategic objectives of the BHC is the idea of creating a ‘one-stop shop’ for all the Basque firms in the Biohealth sector in the Basque Country, which brings together key aspects such as attracting professional talent, commercialization of products and services, access to European regulations, long-term financing, or coordination in internationalization tasks.
The BioHealth sector in the Basque Country is a heterogeneous business ecosystem of very high growth in recent years, accumulating a business close to 950 million euros. Currently, the more than 250 Basque companies linked to Biosciences and BioHealth directly employ almost 5,000 highly qualified professionals, with a high percentage of female employment, especially in R&D&I areas.
In this scenario, the Basque Health Cluster (BHC) -which brings together more than 120 firms- presented on Wednesday at the BAT Tower in Bilbao its new Strategic Plan 2024-2027 with which it aspires to make the greatest qualitative leap since its creation in 2010. The aim is to consolidate the BHC as a single agent generating support structures for the sector, but also a source of specialized solutions for the set of Basque companies working in this field.
With this idea, the BHC aims to set up a common figure that brings together key aspects for the development of the sector in the Basque Country. This ‘one-stop shop’ would be open to all companies, public or private organizations, as well as technology and research centers with interests in this economic field.
The purpose of this ‘one-stop shop’ is to promote and facilitate interaction and collaboration between the actors in the biosciences sector and, at the same time, to serve as access to services related to the new strategic pillars of the cluster, thus benefiting SMEs and micro-SMEs (8% of all Basque companies in the sector account for 55% of total turnover and 40% of employment).
Another of the measures envisaged is the setting up of a laboratory (Living Lab) to test and validate solutions adapted to the different sectorial chains, in addition to providing support in the pre-industrial scaling stage of the medical device sector. The idea is to create a public-private healthcare connection, which will also include the scientific, technological and business sectors. Likewise, the cluster will promote the creation of Osasun Poloa, a future center of the sector that would aim to become a national and international reference, offering value-added services to the different agents that make up the health and biosciences sector in the Basque Country.
Pillars of the new strategic plan
On Wednesday, attended by representatives of close to 100 Basque firms and organizations, emphasis was placed on the challenges that the biohealth and biosciences sector must face up to 2027. “The main challenge of the Basque BioCluster focuses on inter- and intra-sectorial cooperation, public-private cooperation, as well as working together with the healthcare system,” explained BHC director Idoia Muñoz Lizán.
From a quantitative point of view, the BHC management team is committed to growth in the number of associated companies, but also in other parameters such as investment in R&D, generation of specialized employment, turnover, as well as in the internationalization of Basque companies, seeking business opportunities and collaboration at a global level.
From the point of view of strategic lines, the Basque Health Cluster is based on six pillars that respond to the different challenges that the firms in the Biohealth and Biosciences sector must face: Attraction and loyalty of professional talent; efficient management of biological samples and clinical data, updating and speeding up European regulations, promoting the internationalization of Basque companies and improving specialized financing.
The event also served to unveil the new corporate identity of the Basque Health Cluster, a change that aims to project the Basque healthcare sector internationally. “The new brand – emphasized its director, Idoia Muñoz Lizán – seeks to create a positioning identity that shows that we are the pulse and the driving force of the industrial health sector in the Basque Country, and that it is born as a symbol of ambition and development and represents the commitment to constant progress, innovation and progress”.
