Heparin: star of Biospain 2016
The Spanish biotech sector is in good shape, a message being perceived this week at the Biospain 2016 event organised by the Spanish Bioindustry Association (Asebio) in Bilbao: over 1,500 executives; 50 investors, 700 businesses and 3,000 partnering meetings.
The eighth edition of Biospain has a clearly international and public-private cooperation focus, as Asebio general manager Ion Arocena emphasised yesterday, and has drawn representatives from over 26 countries (guest country USA). Plus many news outlets are devoting their pages and social networks to the meeting, including Cinco Días which said that investors are seeking out Spanish biotechs.
“The Spanish biotech industry conveys a positive message: entrepreneurship, internationalisation and innovation,” said Francisco Javier Garzón, CEO of the Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade (ICEX) at the opening event. However, as Ion Arocena went on to say, it “requires economic and political stability. We have success stories. What’s missing are consistent long-term efforts”.
Heparin centenary reaches Bilbao
The 100 years of heparin, which Bioibérica is promoting this year with an extensive programme of international activities, is continuing at Biospain.
How? At our stand and organising an exclusive presentation of the cooperation agreement between the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC), the ISGlobal Barcelona Institute for Global Health and our company to study new strategies based on the creation of new heparin derivative compounds to fight malaria.
The collaboration stems from research work by Dr. Xavier Fernández, director of the Nanomalaria Unit at IBEC-ISGlobal. “We have discovered that heparin has an antimalarial activity and is more affordable thanan antibody,” Dr. Fernández told a packed press conference yesterday.
Congratulations to the Asebio team for the excellent organisation once again of the biennial biotech event in our country.