Today, BlueHealth Innovation Center announces AstraZeneca as its new structural partner. AstraZeneca is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. They shift the boundaries of science to develop medicines that make a difference for patients. AstraZeneca is primarily active in the areas of oncology and cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. BlueHealth Innovation Center is meanwhile active as a non-profit association for 10 years in the support of start-up entrepreneurs in digital healthcare.
“With BlueHealth Innovation Center, we aim for a complementary ecosystem to be able to answer questions from start-ups very quickly. The arrival of AstraZeneca is an important step in this. They bring new therapeutic domains with associated knowledge, contacts and experience inside the ecosystem. This new partnership will help our start-ups move forward faster, and this will benefit patients to lead a better, more fulfilling and happier life,” said Tom Braekeleirs, CEO of BlueHealth Innovation Center.
“Today we announce the partnership with BlueHealth Innovation Center. With this collaboration, the scientific expertise of the pharmaceutical world and technological knowledge of start-ups and scale-ups come closer together. We believe in the power of the partnership and are very proud to be part of the ecosystem”, says Daan Vens, Innovation and Business Excellence Director of AstraZeneca Belgium.
“Finding solutions is not something we can do alone. That is why we want to create more and more partnerships in an open ecosystem where we can collaborate transparently with policymakers, hospitals and healthcare providers”, adds Daan Vens.
The mission of BlueHealth Innovation Center is to support the digital transformation in healthcare through innovation and this specifically by fostering young entrepreneurship in HealthTech. The focus is mainly on guiding start-ups from the ideation up to the scaling phase.
“The BlueHealth Innovation Center partners form a nice mix of government, health care actors, knowledge institutions and companies. The new partnership only strengthens our ecosystem”, says Tom Braekeleirs.
About BlueHealth Innovation Center
BlueHealth Innovation Center (BHIC) is a private-public collaboration between governments, companies, research institutions and health care actors. Their mission is to help support the digital transformation in healthcare by fostering young entrepreneurship. They supervise students, start-ups and health care actors in the development of innovative digital projects. Annually they supervise dozens of start-ups from the very early phase to its internationalisation. They work from Genk, Antwerp and Ghent. Partners within the organisation are AstraZeneca, AZ Klina (Algemeen Ziekenhuis Klina [General Hospital Klina]), CoFoundry, GZA (GasthuisZusters Antwerpen [Antwerp Sisters Hospital]), imec, in4care, Ingram Micro, Inno.com Institute, Microsoft, Ooho, PwC, Roche Diagnostics, Antwerp City, Genk City, Ghent City, UGent [Ghent University], Universiteit Antwerpen [Antwerp University], UCB, U-Sentric, UZ Gent (Universitair Ziekenhuis Gent [Ghent University Hospital]), UZA (Universitair Ziekenhuis Antwerpen [Antwerp University Hospital]), ZNA (Ziekenhuis Netwerk Antwerpen [Hospital Network Antwerp]), ZOL (Ziekenhuis Oost Limburg [East Limburg Hospital]) and Zorgbedrijf Antwerpen.
More information about BHIC can be found at www.bhic.care
More information about AstraZeneca can be found at www.astrazeneca.be