The member companies and organisations of the Basque Health Cluster (BHC) have added up to 1,500 people to their workforces in the last year, bringing the total number of professionals to 11,500. If we include the research staff linked to Biohealth and Biosciences at Technology Centres, Research Centres and Universities, the Basque Country now has 16,000 professionals in these fields. These figures were announced yesterday afternoon at the Artium in the capital of Alava during the BHC Eguna, a day of debates on the subject of Biohealth, which also included the cluster’s Annual Assembly and the renewal of the BHC’s Board of Directors.
- The Basque Biohealth and Biosciences cluster currently employs 16,000 people, if research centres and university staff in this field are also included.
- The BHC held its annual Assembly at the Artium in Vitoria-Gasteiz, where it was confirmed that the companies in the cluster now account for 2.5% of the Basque GDP.
During the annual Assembly, the director of the Basque Health Cluster (BHC), Idoia Muñoz Lizán, expressed her “enormous satisfaction” at the good progress of the cluster of Biohealth and Biosciences companies, “both in the creation of new quality employment, with a markedly female profile, and in turnover or investment in R&D&I; in fact, the best of Basque companies in the sector is yet to come”. In his speech, he explained that the sector is undergoing major transformations “for which inter- and intra-sector cooperation, public-private cooperation and joint work with the Basque health system are necessary”,
The Basque Health Cluster currently brings together 128 members and organisations linked to the field of biohealth and biosciences. In the last year, the cluster has increased the number of participants by 19. The activity of the BHC in the last year has included its participation in around thirty events, the signing of six collaboration agreements with other organisations linked to biosciences and biohealth, as well as the development of four training activities for its member companies, which have enabled more than 50 professionals in the sector to be trained in competences and skills.
Similarly, the BHC’s Annual Assembly approved the partial renewal of the Board of Directors of this cluster. Its president, Asier Albizu, has renewed his mandate for another four-year term, as has vice-president Julio Font. Unai Atristain, from the firm Cardiva, Carlos Fernández Isoird, from Gogoa Mobility, Pedro Esnaola, from Oncomatrix Biopharma, Iñigo Pagoaga, from Roxall, Jorge Presa from Cyber Surgerya, as well as a representative from the technology centre Tecnalia, member of the Basque Research & Technology Alliance, partner of the BHC, have also joined the Board.
During the meeting following the General Assembly, Muñoz Lizán emphasised that biohealth and biosciences is one of the areas of economic activity with the greatest expansion and the best future in the EU, and therefore also in the Basque Country. The director of the BHC referred in this case to the fact that the companies in the cluster have accelerated, since its constitution 14 years ago, their weight in the Basque economy, currently representing around 2.5% of the Basque GDP. That is, more than 2,000 million euros, if we include the activity in the field of Biohealth and Biosciences generated by the research centres and Universities working in these fields in the Basque Country.