Bio^M is a partner of the bioXclusters alliance, a partnership forged by four European biotech and health regions with the aim to facilitate access to non-European markets in the life sciences & health sector. Its purpose is to reduce the entry barriers to challenging but key global markets for small and medium-sized European companies.

bioXclusters alliance is the follow-up of the original bioXclusters (2012 - 2014) and bioXclusters plus (2016 - 2018) projects, funded under the European programme for the Competitiveness of Small and Medium Enterprises (COSME). The alliance unites the four leading health clusters Biocat (Catalonia, Spain), Bio^M (Bavaria, Germany), bioPmed/Bioindustry Park Silvano Fumero (Piemonte, Italy) and Lyonbiopole (Rhone-Alpes, France).

Through its clusters, the bioXclusters alliance represents: 3,300 European SMEs that work in the sectors of health and personalized medicine; 200 large pharma and biotech companies; 23,000 academic researchers, and over 358,000 jobs combining both workers from the public and private sector.

According to their Joint International Strategic Plan, the four clusters formed strategic entry points to those key markets explored during the original bioXclusters project – USA, China, Brazil –, and those of the follow-up bioXclusters plus project – Japan, Australia, Canada and South Korea. 

The main activities developed were:

• Enhancing the international positioning of the European metacluster.

• Building gateways to the targeted markets and forging long-term formal partnerships for the benefit of European health SMEs.
• Deploying tailored internationalization tools and support mechanisms for European SMEs.

The consortium also focused on addressing global healthcare topics such as regenerative medicine, the digital development of health systems (big data, development of patient focused ICTs, etc.), and micro- and nano-technologies, all of which are key for the development and good application of personalized medicine.

Mission to Japan

One of the first actions developed in the bioXclusters alliance was the business mission to Japan (October 2016). During this mission, 26 European companies had the opportunity to travel to Japan and get to discover the business opportunities that the Japanese Health market (the second largest in the world) has to offer, or, if they were already familiar with the country, they were able to reinforce their previously created relationships in Japan. Since then, the clusters of the alliance continue to take companies to the European Biotech ＆ Pharma Virtual Partnering Conference in Osaka and to BioJapan in Yokohama.

Results of the project

Since it started in January 2016, the bioXclusters alliance has:

• signed 8 cooperation agreements with partners in Australia, China, Canada, Japan, and Brazil;
• organized 8 meeting and matchmaking events (cluster-cluster and B2B);
• organized numerous international trade missions to Japan, China and USA.

Current status

The bioXclusters alliance – even if not publicly funded at the moment –, was set up as a long-term joint partnership. There are still ongoing activities related to the project as part of its long-term strategy, in order to further develop the relationships between the European companies and the markets targeted by the bioXclusters alliance. An example of this long-term strategy is the webinar “An EU-Japan multi-partners alliance for supporting business in health-related life sciences”, which took place on 17th March 2021.

Further information:

• ESCP on Personalised Healthcare bioXclusters plus:
  https://www.clustercollaboration.eu/escp-profiles/bioxclusters
• News and documents of the ESCP on Personalised Healthcare
• Die EU-Initiative bioXclusters plus bereitet den Weg nach China für Unternehmen der Personalisierten Medizin (15.02.2017)
• Building bridges between European and Japanese life science regions (11.12.2016)