Laureano Simón, Antonio Martínez,
Patxi López and Trinidad Jiménez

On January 28th, Progenika Biopharma, the Basque company specialised in personalised medicine, opened its new biochip development and production centre in the Bizkaia Technology Park. The company, which boasts a multidisciplinary and international workforce made up of almost 150 people – of whom 60% are doctors -, has made a global investment in excess of €8 million, of which €2.5 M is dedicated to equipment.

The opening was hosted by the President of the Basque Government, Patxi López, and attended by the Spanish Health Minister, Trinidad Jiménez, the Health and Industry Counsellors of the Basque Government, as well as representatives from the business world.

The new centre is part of the company’s commitment to growth, by undertaking an expansion plan with a projected R&D investment of more than €75 M over the next three years, and a forecasted business volume of €200 M for 2012. The expansion plan includes the opening of a new head office in Mexico in the near future. According to Antonio Martínez, founder and Managing Director of the company, the only way forward is “the development of a global market with solutions adapted to the reality of each country”.

Grupo Progenika develops biochips in the field of personalised medicine, aimed at disease diagnosis and prognosis as well as patients’ response to treatment. Besides its development and production centres in the Bizkaia Technology Park and in the MIT campus in Cambridge (Massachusetts, EEUU) MIT, Progenika has a sales office in Dubai (United Arab Emirates) and sales and Intellectual Property management offices in Madrid and London.

Progenika Biopharma has developed and patented a diverse range of products already on the market, such as LIPOchip, for the diagnosis of Familial Hypercholesterolaemia (hereditary cholesterol) or BLOODchip, to ensure blood transfusion compatibility. The company is currently developing 10 projects - some of them close to the market - in the fields of Oncology and diseases of the Central Nervous System, such as: Schizophrenia, Depression and Multiple Sclerosis.