The Basque biotechnology firm Progenika Biopharma, located in the Bizkaia technology Park, has set up in the United Arab Emirates, as a result of an agreement with its Ministry of Health, to guarantee the safety of blood transfusions and blood compatibility. Thanks to this agreement Progenika becomes one of the first companies of these characteristics to set up in the Persian Gulf region, an expanding market with high purchasing power.

Progenika’s research and products are based on biochips, which enable thousands of genetic variables to be analysed simultaneously, thereby multiplying the capability of conventional techniques to diagnose an illness, forecast the aggressiveness of its progress and predict the patient’s response to treatment.

Progenika has introduced its BLOODchip® in the main blood bank in the United Arab Emirates, the el Sharjah Blood Transfusion and Research Centre, in Dubai. The Ministry of Health of the UAE has backed this initiative to provide this blood bank with the cutting edge technology required in order to carry out transfusions with the highest safety levels and to convert the blood bank into a reference point for the Middle East. In line with these goals, Progenika has already started training the persons responsible for the main blood banks in the region, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, with the aim of consolidating Progenika as the leading personalised medicine company in this part of the world.