European Diagnostic Clusters Alliance starts up
Franck Molina, director of Euromediag and SysDiag, will serve as president for the next three years. The eight EDCA clusters represent some 500 in-vitro diagnostic companies and organizations.
BY BIOCAT
The eight European clusters that announced their intention to join forces to drive medical diagnostics in Europe have formalized this alliance with the signing of its bylaws on 30 June in Brussels.
The European Diagnostic Clusters Alliance (EDCA) was also formally presented at the Euromediag International Convention —the top European diagnostics congress held 5th to 7th July in Montpellier— at a roundtable that included Tea Petrin, former Slovenian Minister of Economy and chairwoman of the European Cluster Policy Group. During her intervention, Petrin highlighted the importance of encouraging this type of collaboration “to drive competitiveness and internationalization in European companies.”
The founding members of the EDCA are Euromediag, the Eurobiomed cluster’s diagnostic network (Languedoc-Roussillon and Provence-Alps-Cote d’Azur, France); Wal-Dx, the in-vitro diagnostic group at the BioWin health competitiveness cluster (Wallonia, Belgium); Biocat (Catalonia, Spain); LifeScience Klaster Krakow (Poland); Nexxus Scotland (Scotland, United Kingdom); Oxfordshire Biotech Network (Oxford, United Kingdom); Uppsala Bio (Sweden), and ZMDB/BioTOP (Berlin-Brandenburg, Germany). Other clusters have already expressed their interest in joining.
After signing the bylaws, members voted for the alliance’s president for the next three years, choosing Franck Molina, director of Euromediag and SysDiag (the first French research center devoted to human health diagnostics). The headquarters of the EDCA is located in Brussels.
Commitment to more competitive SMEs
The EDCA’s main objectives are to promote the competitiveness of European stakeholders in in-vitro diagnostics through lobbying, networking and innovative partnerships, to facilitate and accelerate internationalization, and drive the preeminent role of diagnostics in medical practice. Carlos Lurigados, project director for the Biocat Innovation Department, explains that “the alliance was created to help SMEs become more competitive and increase their internationalization, although we are also open to incorporating other stakeholders.”
The EDCA is currently mapping all the stakeholders involved in order to establish collaborations, the results of which will be available online soon.
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