Five focal points to drive the BioRegion of Catalonia

The Biocat 2010-2013 Master Plan established five strategic priorities, five focal points around which all Biocat activities are structured. The first of these focal points includes all actions that aim to consolidate the biotechnology, biomedicine and medical technology cluster in Catalonia. Actions like creating and managing strategic information tools; identifying and bringing together stakeholders in the BioRegion; and boosting and projecting the system’s strengths both internally and externally.

The second focal point centers on fostering business competitiveness, with a wide variety of proposals that range from supporting entrepreneurship to guiding companies in their stages of growth, with personalized advisory services on partnership, funding, human resources and market access. Boosting technology transfer and contract manufacturing in the medical technology arena has also been one of the goals of our activity in 2011.

The third focal point is internationalization, which includes both activities to improve access to foreign markets for companies in the BioRegion —with a special focus on those in the USA— and participation in various projects under the framework of EU programs, which allow Biocat and companies and organizations in the BioRegion to work collaboratively with international partners.

The training and talent focal point includes training programs and technical and introductory workshops that help companies and organizations in the BioRegion to incorporate human resources with the necessary training, from interns to international executives that can lead R&D development phases or experts in business strategy.

Finally, Biocat works continually to extend a positive social perception of biotechnology that, at the same time, is critical and generates enriching debate and an assessment of the contributions science makes to the wellbeing of society as a whole.