70 Catalan companies and organizations to travel to BIO Boston, benchmark global fair for biotechnology sector

<p class="field-item field-item-0">The Catalan delegation, with 49 companies and 21 institutions, makes up more than 60% of Spanish representation</p><p class="field-item field-item-1">President of the Government of Catalonia Artur Mas will present the report from Ernst&Young consultancy: “Catalonia Life Sciences Report”, created with data from Biocat</p>

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A total of 49 companies –32 with their own booth– 21 organizations and more than 100 delegates will make up the delegation from the Bioregion of Catalonia at the twentieth edition of the BIO International Convention, to be held in Boston from 18 to 21 June 2012, with the slogan Connect, partner and innovate. BIO is the most important global business meeting in the biotechnology arena. This year, it will bring together more than 15,000 delegates from 65 countries, more than 900 exhibitors and 1,800 companies. The exhibition hall is complemented by the Business Forum, where partnering meetings will be held. In 2011, more than 21,000 of these one-to-one meetings were held.

The Spanish pavilion at BIO Boston is broken down by bioregion and, as in 2011, participants will be from Catalonia, the Basque Country and Andalusia. The pavilion, which measures 600 square meters, will have 54 booths, 32 of which are from the BioRegion of Catalonia, 8 from the Andalusia BioRegion, 7 from BioBasque, and the remaining 7 from the rest of the country. Biocat, which is coordinating the Catalan delegation for the sixth consecutive year, will have its own small space in the center of the pavilion, which will be used by 17 other companies and 21 research and sector-support organizations.

Most of the Catalan companies traveling to BIO (72%) carry out activities in the human health arena, both producing new drugs and therapies and in the fields of diagnostics and vaccines. Seventeen percent of the companies work in animal health. Companies that apply biotechnology in the agrifood sector (4%) and to industrial bioprocesses (10%) will also participate. The delegation is rounded off with companies that provide consultancy services related to different areas: business development, legal issues and venture capital, among others.

The BioRegion of Catalonia, led by Barcelona, has become one of the great biotechnology hubs of southern Europe and the benchmark cluster for biotechnology, biomedicine and medical technology. Twenty one percent of registered biotechnology companies in Spain are based in Catalonia. In total, the Catalan biotech sector has an annual turnover of €15,600 millions, making up 30% of the business volume in this sector in the country. The Catalan delegation to BIO makes up 60% of the total Spanish representation and in absolute values is significantly larger than those from countries like Brazil, China, India and Russia.

Business opportunities in Catalonia

Under the framework of this year’s BIO, the prestigious international consultancy firm Ernst&Young, a global benchmark in the analysis of the biopharmaceutical and medical technology markets, will present their report Catalonia Life Sciences Report 2011, created from data on the sector collected by Biocat. Each year, E&Y publishes —and presents at BIO— the Beyond Borders report, which is one of the most well-known benchmark analyses on a global level. Periodically, E&Y publishes studies on specific countries, but this one devoted to Catalonia is the first to focus on a bioregion and not an entire nation.

Ernst & Young is a global leader in auditing, fiscal, legal transaction and consultancy services. More than 152,000 professionals work to help companies from around the world to identify and capitalize on available business opportunities. One of their aims is to have a positive impact on business and markets, as well as on society as a whole.

The event presenting the report, which will take place at the E&Y central headquarters in Boston, will feature: Glen Giovanetti, global director for the biotechnology sector at Ernst & Young; Montserrat Vendrell, CEO of Biocat; Susan R. Windham-Bannister, president of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center; Silvia Ondategui Parra, head of the Health and Pharmaceuticals sector in the Ernst & Young consultancy area; and, to close the event, President of the Government of Catalonia, Artur Mas, who will lead the Catalan business delegation traveling to BIO.