New edition of the BioRegion Forum, an essential meeting for identifying opportunities in the life and health sciences sector

In celebrating its tenth anniversary, Biocat is holding a new edition of the Forum of the BioRegion of Catalonia on the coming 25 November at the Palace of Congress of Catalonia to bring together the players making up the Catalan ecosystem of life and health sciences, and to reflect on the challenges and opportunities that are presented in the present environment of change and sector transformation.

During the meeting, international experts will present experiences of public-private collaboration and will explain the trends and future of biopharma, techmed and digital health as part of a world stage characterised by economic uncertainty, market volatility, changes in regulations and a greater demand for innovation and creation of value. Each table will deal with a transversal subject that is priority for the BioRegion of Catalonia.

The BioRegion Forum was held consecutively between 2008 and 2011. The last edition brought together more than 450 managers and professionals of the sector, and this year’s meeting is expected to gather the local and international key opinion leaders, as for the first time the meeting will be open to the international public.

The event will be organised by Biocat and is open to sponsorship from companies and institutions in search of visibility before the players of the BioRegion. For the moment, Mind the Byte and Biokit have been confirmed as collaborators. 

How to create value in a changing environment, the leitmotiv of the program

The Forum program offers a global, deep and necessary view of the current trends and future challenges of the life and health sciences sector. It is an essential meeting for getting up to date, for discovering new ways to create value, to identify business opportunities and to gain in competitiveness. It has been conceived for attendees to find inspiration in the experiences applicable to their business model and, at the same time, to increase awareness on the developments of the industry at the hand of the best international experts.

Our keynote speaker will be Simon Howell, founder and non-executive manager of MedCity and Dean of Guy's Campus of King’s College London. MedCity promotes investment and enterprise in life sciences in the south-east of England. 

In the first session, the former chairman and general manager of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (USA), Susan W. Bannister, and the main adviser in health innovation systems of MaRS Discovery District (Canada), Zayna Khayat, will present their success models in public-private collaboration and technological revaluation.

The two speakers are experts in health innovation. Whereas Bannister stood out as one of the ten most influential women in biotech according to the Boston Globe, Khayat works for health systems to adopt the best technology to improve public health and its performance, and also drives the new health economy.

The meeting will also go further into the new technologies and challenges of the health industry with the participation of three international speakers specialised in the three main subsectors. The session, which will be sponsored by Biokit, will receive: the partner-director of Monacon Beteiligungs GmbH, Michael Müller, who will talk about the challenges of the biopharma sector; the partner and director of Innovation in Medtech LLC, David Cassak, who will deal with the new paradigms of the medical technologies and the partner and director of the board of Draper Esprit, Vishal Gulati, who will explain the future of the digital health sector. 

The programme will be completed by an opening talk, discussion on the need for Catalonia to have the figure of a Chief Scientist, which will include ​Mehrdad Hariri, general manager and president of the Canadian Science Policy Centre (CPSC), and a dialogue on science between Andreu Mas Colell and Josep Maria Martorell.

Biocat starts up the cycle of dialogues on the BioRegion

To celebrate its tenth anniversary, on the same day Biocat will be starting up the “10 conversations to explain the coming 10 years” cycle of dialogues on the BioRegion, which will delve into a series of subjects of interest to all of those who form part of the ecosystem in Catalonia. The first session will be led by Andreu Mas Colell and Josep Maria Martorell, who will discuss science.

The entries for the BioRegion Forum will remain open until Wednesday 23 November.