Regina Revilla, new president of the Spanish BioIndustry Association
The biotech sector employers renew the presidency, vice-presidencies and nine members of the Board of Directors.
BY BIOCAT
The Spanish Bioindustry Association (Asebio) renewed yesterday its presidency, vice-presidencies and some committee members of the Board of Directors after celebrating its General Assembly. Regina Revilla has been chosen as new president for the next two years, replacing José María Fernández Sousa-Faro, who has occupied the post since June 2008. Sousa-Faro and Antonio Vallespir (managing director at Abengoa Bioenergy) have been chosen as vice-presidents.
The alternative candidatures for the presidency were Fernando Royo (president and managing director of Genzyme in Spain), Carlos Buesa (CEO of Oryzon Genomics) and Jaime Costa (director of regulatory affairs at Monsanto).
Regina Revilla is director of External Relations and Communication of MSD Spain since 1996. She has occupied numerous posts at the Spanish Government for 13 years, among them, assistant manager of International Projects at the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI), general director of Technology Policy at the Spanish Ministry of Industry and Energy, and general director of the Spanish Agency of Medicines and Healthcare Products of the Spanish Ministry of health.
The winning candidate program lines of work are:
- Fostering competitiveness and favouring the sector internationalization.
- Continuing former president’s efforts of improving incentives to R+D+i through advancing fiscal credits.
- Favouring the increase in number, as well as in amount, of venture capital funds investments.
- Introducing biotechnology in the political agenda as core technology.
- Fostering quality training.
- Reinforcing the communication to investors, politicians, media and civil society of the profitability and solidity of an emergent sector as biotechnology.
- Promoting a wider use and development of industrial biotechnology.
- Updating the employers’ association organizative model giving a more relevant role to committee members and reinforcing already existing relations with other organizations, and institutions synergies at a national, regional and also, a local level.
The nine board members which have been elected —the major part of companies have their headquarters in Catalonia— are: Oryzon (Carlos Buesa), Grifols Engineering (Esperanza Guisado), AB-Biotics (Miquel Àngel Bonachera), Ingenasa (Carmen Vela), Neuron Biopharma (Javier Velasco), Digna Biotech (Pablo Ortiz), Janus Developments (Maria Isabel Bergés), Esteve (Eduard Valentí) and GP Pharm (Alberto Bueno). The other continuing members are: Amgen (Jordi Martí), Biópolis (Daniel Ramón), Farmasierra (Tomás Olleros), Cellerix (Eduardo Bravo), Genetrix (Pilar de la Huerta), Genzyme (Fernando Royo), Vivia Biotech (Andrés Ballesteros) and Merck (Santiago Almazán).