Biotechnology sector meets in Barcelona for 2013 BIO-Europe Spring conference

The main impact of the congress in to be calculated in the mid- and long-term, positioning Barcelona and Catalonia as a true hub for the biotechnological industry, creating new business opportunities, attracting investment and talent, and developing new knowledge, which will later be applied to the entire society. However, the conference will also have an immediate impact, bringing €2.2 million to the local economy from direct investment in the event and the presence of 2,000 delegates in the city for 3 days, who will go to restaurants, attend shows, buy presents and sleep in the city hotels.

This year’s congress is likely to surpass the figures from 2010 in Barcelona. Then, 1,738 delegates were present, representing 1,056 companies from 44 different countries. 9,016 partnering meetings were held and 62 companies showed their products.

In 2012, the BIO-Europe Spring conference was held in Amsterdam, with 1,304 companies present. 26 of them were Catalan, which represented 50% of the Spanish delegation. Now, in Barcelona, Catalan companies will represent 60% of the Spanish delegation, made up of 100 companies.

Most of the companies present in Barcelona will try to make new contacts with executives from other corporations, with a special emphasis on high-level contacts fostered through the programme PartneringONE, an online tool created by the EBD Group that coordinates the diaries of the delegates attending. This tool enables those using it to find meeting times and therefore it facilitates the setting-up of new associations and the development of new business opportunities with other companies.

Launching new projects, promoting franchises, presenting new products about to be clinically tested, finding partners, labelling technology developments, presenting the company’s activities, offering services, finding new market opportunities and internationalising sales are some of the objectives sought by the participating companies. The sector is profiting from the recovery of the investment levels in mature markets such as the United States and from the high growth in emergent markets such as China.