AB-Biotics was born in 2004 from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). It is a company dedicated to nutraceutics development, pharmacogenetics solutions and research in innovative treatments for lung cancer. The company generates an income of 2,1 million euros and has just initiated the process to enter the Alternative Stock Market (MAB).
The company founders, who at first had the support of Professor Buenaventura Guamis, are from Girona and their names are Sergi Audivert and Miquel Àngel Bonachera. Both, Audivert and Bonachera, admit that the entry into MAB (stock market dedicated to small-cap companies seeking to expand): "allows us to obtain liquidity in a moment in which the search of capital is basic to consolidate current projects and to start new ones with potential sector partners".
More notoriety in Europe
Both managers coincide on affirming that MAB gives companies notoriety and values them form the first moment they are in MAB. Also, it provides funding tools they did not have access to before, which placed Spanish companies at a disadvantage.
The success of AB-Biotics lies, especially, in a model of business that generates profits in short and mid-term. However, they are also promoting international partnership to develop products which need heavy investments but which will bring high profits in the long run to their company in Cerdanyola del Vallès (Barcelona). Bonachera and Audivert state that "we are a company with entrepreneurial and fighting capacities, as one can see from our results; we aspire to be a referent in the European biotechnological industry thanks to our competitiveness, profitability and business model".
AB-Biotics is one of the 65 biotechnological companies in the BioRegion of Catalonia. Their opinion is also that "the BioRegion of Catalonia generates a positive image of the Catalan companies abroad and a virtuous circle which helps to retain talent thanks to the quality seal it represents to belong to this BioRegion". In this sense, Miquel Àngel Bonachera adds that, in this sense, "one of our objectives in human resources is to retain talent from Catalan universities in order to increase value of Catalan companies and foster local researchers’ potential". They also think that it is essential to occupy a place in the European biotech sector.