“The AseBio Report reflects two decades of growth in the Spanish biotech sector”

Without data, there is no reason. This is why the AseBio Report was first created in 2000, reflecting all the information on the Spanish biotechnology sector. The first Report was compiled right when the Spanish Bioindustry Association (AseBio) was established. There was a clear need to know what was happening in biotechnology in our country. But it was also important to share it and for the media to start talking about the work of the 50 or so companies that made up the sector in those days.

Since then, the association has changed and grown a lot, and so has the sector. From 50, we are now 800 biotechnology companies in Spain. And AseBio started off with just 25 founding members and now has nearly 300. The report has been with us from the very start and, over more than twenty years, has helped us tell the story of an innovative industry that works to keep people and the planet healthy. 

It takes six months to put together a report like this. After the year ends, the work starts to compile everything that has happened in the sector and it sees the light the following summer, in the form of a 160-page book.

Trustworthy sources 

We mainly draw from two sources. The first is information from our own members. In a series of questionnaires, we ask them to tell us what they’ve done in biotechnology, what products they’ve launched to market, how many scientific papers they’ve published, who they’ve closed deals or partnerships with, and we also ask them for their opinions on the factors they think are most positive and negative for the sector. 

The other source is all the collaborators we work with each year: from the National Statistics Institute to the Economic Forecasting Centre, FECYT, COTEC, Ascri, CDTI, Enisa, Ministry of Science and Innovation, ClarkeModet, the Madrid Science Park, biotech venture capital funds and the ministries for innovation in the 17 Autonomous Communities.

Between our members and all these institutions, there are over 300 entities that collaborate on the report each year. Coordinating and making sense of all this information can be a painstaking task. 

A benchmark document, with or without pandemic

The report is undoubtedly the benchmark publication for the Spanish biotechnology sector. It has always been the go-to document for anyone who wants to learn more about the sector. In recent years, however, we’ve seen how it is also used by Spanish national institutions and organisations beyond our borders. 

Plus, although we publish it at the beginning of the summer, throughout the year, it continues to appear in the news, in publications from companies and other like-minded organisations, and we keep using it at AseBio to reinforce our messages. It is essential that we continue generating this content because it allows us to measure how the sector is evolving each year. In short, data never dies it just gets updated. 

Of all of them, the 2019 AseBio Report is the one that marked us most for two reasons. It saw a radical transformation in style, format, content, structure and, above all, appearance. The document was compiled between January and June 2020, the year the Covid-19 pandemic broke out. We worked for three months without going into the office and that’s why we can say we literally did it “from home”.

2022 for sustainable growth

This year is special to us. We’re continuing with the same line as the two previous years, but this time we’re consolidating our narrative thread around why biotechnology is so important to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) that lay out a new model for sustainable, resilient growth.

By doing this, we hope to demonstrate that biotechnology is an industry that not only creates jobs and contributes to the economy, but that it is also developing sometimes surprising innovations that benefit us all, keeping us and our planet healthy. Our industry impacts 13 of the 17 SDG and all our members contribute their grain of sand, every day, to this global agenda that we all have to work together to achieve. 

To conclude, I would like to answer a question someone asked me recently. If you had to describe the AseBio Report in three words what would they be? First, the report is a benchmark because many anxiously await its publication every year. It is also consistent because this is the 22nd year of our reporting on Spanish biotechnology. And third, it is a showcase because it is a place where we can show a united, booming Spanish biotechnology sector and where biotechnology companies can show off and raise awareness of what they do.

#InternationalBiotechnologyDay