The Innovation and Health Biocluster takes another step forward. The town councils of L’Hospitalet and Esplugues, the Bellvitge University Hospital, the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL), the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO), the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital and the University of Barcelona have signed an agreement to promote and consolidate the project. This is a cooperation, collaboration and coordination agreement for the request of funding for the project achievement.
The promotor group of the biosanitary hub has also agreed on the creation of the agreement Monitoring and Coordination Commission, which will meet quarterly to analyze its evolution.
All the signatory entities and administrations have worked in recent years on the Innovation and Health BioCluster project, with the common goal of improving Catalonia’s health innovation system, integrating local and health institutions in the southern metropolitan area and, at the same time, socially, economically and healthily enhancing the territory that hosts them.
Therefore, work has been done to promote innovation in health and to economically strengthen the sector, research, the generation of knowledge and the transfer of technology to the productive sector, as well as the intelligent specialization of the territory in personalized medicine and digital transformation, with the improvement of skills to reduce the digital gap. And now, all this work is reflected in this agreement that will allow everyone to go together, and not only in the management of the projects, but also in the request for financial aid such as, for example, the Next Generation funds of the European Union.
The Innovation and Health BioClúster, which will be located on Avinguda de la Gran Via, is a strategic country project that will favor a new economy based on innovation and knowledge, a point of attraction for laboratories and new biomedical companies that will be installed in the biosanitary hub of L’Hospitalet and Esplugues de Llobregat. The project, within the framework of the Biopol’H PDU, will generate 30,000 direct jobs; it will have an impact of 4,400 million euros, 1.82% of Catalonia’s total GDP, and will become the biomedical capital of southern Europe.