Basque Health Cluster Brings Together the Basque Health Ecosystem to Explore the Strategic Opportunities of Deep Tech and Life Sciences

BHC Eguna 2026 gathers companies, scientific and technological organisations, institutions and professionals to reflect on the future of health and biosciences in the Basque Country

Donostia-San Sebastián, 11 June 2026. Basque Health Cluster held today a new edition of BHC Eguna, the leading annual gathering of the health and biosciences sector in the Basque Country, bringing together companies, technology centres, healthcare organisations, universities, institutions and professionals from across the Basque health ecosystem.

The event provided a forum to discuss the main challenges and opportunities shaping the future of the sector, focusing on innovation, collaboration, competitiveness and the international positioning of the Basque Country in the field of health and life sciences.

The day began with the Basque Health Cluster General Assembly, an exclusive session for member organisations in which the Cluster reviewed its activities and achievements throughout 2025. During the meeting, the organisation also renewed its Board of Directors.

The session highlighted the continued growth and consolidation of Basque Health Cluster, reinforcing its role as a driving force for collaboration, innovation and competitiveness across the sector.

The institutional opening featured speeches by Idoia Muñoz, Managing Director of Basque Health Cluster; Asier Albizu, President of the Cluster and CEO of Biolan; and Aritz Uriarte Fuertes, Vice Minister for Healthcare Administration and Financing of the Basque Government.

In her speech, Idoia Muñoz emphasised the evolution of the Basque health and biosciences ecosystem and highlighted the role of clusters as key tools for strengthening business competitiveness.

Muñoz stated that “competitiveness is not built by selecting winners, but by strengthening ecosystems,” arguing that current challenges related to strategic autonomy, technological sovereignty, talent attraction and market access require “collaboration, partnerships and collective intelligence.”

She also stressed that the health sector has become a significant economic and industrial reality for the Basque Country and defended the importance of small and medium-sized enterprises within the ecosystem, stating that “supporting our SMEs is not a matter of size, but a matter of vision for the country.”

The Managing Director of Basque Health Cluster further called for health and biosciences to be placed at the centre of Euskadi’s future strategies, noting that “health means industry, skilled employment, innovation, exports, investment attraction and competitiveness,” while also generating wellbeing and social progress.

For his part, Asier Albizu highlighted the importance of continuing to strengthen the Basque health ecosystem through collaboration between companies, healthcare providers, knowledge centres and institutions. He argued that the Basque Country possesses the scientific, technological and industrial capabilities needed to become a benchmark in healthcare innovation and underlined the importance of close cooperation with the Department of Health to address the sector’s challenges.

Albizu also stressed the need to maintain and reinforce specific support programmes for health technologies, particularly those linked to clinical validation and evidence generation, which he described as “essential levers for shortening the distance between innovation and its real-world implementation in healthcare systems.” He further called for progress towards a framework that facilitates access to and secondary use of clinical data by companies, creating value both for businesses and for the healthcare system itself.

He also advocated for strategic public procurement policies that encourage local innovation, strengthen Euskadi’s strategic autonomy and maximise the economic, technological and social return of investments in healthcare. In this regard, he highlighted the role of associations and clusters as effective tools for articulating collaboration among stakeholders and transforming existing capabilities into projects with a positive impact on society.

Aritz Uriarte Fuertes highlighted the strength of the Basque health ecosystem and the role played by Basque Health Cluster as a meeting point for companies, technology centres, universities, healthcare organisations and institutions. The Vice Minister stressed that health is one of Euskadi’s strategic pillars for wellbeing and competitiveness, fully aligned with European priorities in innovation and development.

Uriarte underlined the importance of continuing to advance public-private and interinstitutional collaboration to address the major challenges facing the sector, pointing to initiatives such as the Basque Health Pact as examples of collective efforts aimed at strengthening the healthcare system. He also highlighted Euskadi’s existing capabilities in areas such as artificial intelligence, personalised medicine and advanced therapies, fields expected to transform healthcare in the coming years.

During his speech, he also referred to the potential of intelligent and secure health data management to generate benefits for patients, healthcare professionals, the healthcare system and businesses alike. Finally, he encouraged stakeholders to continue fostering spaces for dialogue and cooperation that enable the development of shared projects and help consolidate the Basque Country as a European benchmark in health, innovation and technological development.

The keynote address was delivered by Antonio López, CEO of SILO Company, under the title “Deep Tech and Life Sciences: A Strategic Opportunity for the Basque Country.”

During his presentation, López argued that industrial policy has once again become a central element in today’s geopolitical and technological context and that investment in Deep Tech represents one of the most significant development opportunities for territories with strong scientific, technological and industrial capabilities.

He also noted that one of Europe’s major challenges remains its difficulty in transforming research and knowledge into scalable companies capable of generating economic impact, warning of the risk that Europe may continue to lead in knowledge generation while other regions capture the value created through commercialisation and scaling.

In this context, he highlighted the Basque Country’s particularly favourable position thanks to the strength of its industrial fabric, its scientific and technological ecosystem, its leadership in R&D investment, the availability of advanced innovation support and financing instruments, and a well-established culture of public-private collaboration. According to López, these factors place Euskadi among the European regions best prepared to capitalise on the new technological wave driven by life sciences and disruptive technologies.

The CEO of SILO also emphasised the need to strengthen technology transfer, facilitate access to specialised financing for startups and scale-ups, attract specialised investment funds and consolidate strategic capabilities that can transform scientific knowledge into new business and growth opportunities.

Following the keynote speech, Antonio López and Asier Albizu engaged in an open dialogue reflecting on the role that the Basque Country can play in the emerging international landscape of innovation and technology. Both agreed that Euskadi possesses distinctive assets that can help establish it as a European benchmark in healthcare innovation, while stressing the need to continue strengthening collaboration among companies, knowledge centres, healthcare providers and institutions in order to accelerate the market adoption of innovative solutions.

They also highlighted the importance of creating favourable conditions to attract investment, talent and high-impact projects, as well as the role played by organisations such as Basque Health Cluster in connecting capabilities, promoting collaborative initiatives and strengthening the international positioning of the Basque health ecosystem.

The discussion also underlined the need to leverage the region’s strengths to accelerate knowledge transfer, foster the growth of new technology-based companies and consolidate an ecosystem capable of transforming scientific excellence into economic and industrial activity.

Furthermore, participants highlighted the importance of defining shared strategic projects for the health sector, reinforcing collaboration between companies, research organisations and institutions, and promoting mechanisms that facilitate the adoption and scaling of innovation. In this regard, the role of clusters and collaborative organisations such as Basque Health Cluster was recognised as key to building consensus, driving flagship projects and strengthening the positioning of the Basque health ecosystem in strategic areas such as advanced therapies, artificial intelligence and innovation-oriented public procurement.

The institutional closing address was delivered by Unai Andueza Iraeta, Deputy for Economic Promotion and Strategic Projects of the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa.

During his speech, Andueza congratulated Basque Health Cluster for its work in energising the Basque health ecosystem and highlighted collaboration as one of Euskadi’s key differentiating factors in addressing current economic and technological challenges. He also underlined the strategic importance of the life sciences and health sector, not only because of its contribution to people’s wellbeing, but also due to its role in economic development, quality job creation and the generation of high-value-added activity.

The Deputy also highlighted the progress made in Gipuzkoa’s life sciences sector, pointing to growing R&D investment, entrepreneurial dynamism and institutional commitment to promoting new knowledge-based and specialised economic activities. In this regard, he stressed that Euskadi must continue investing in high-value technological and industrial sectors that strengthen its international positioning and generate new development opportunities for the territory.

The event concluded with a networking session that enabled participants to strengthen relationships, create new collaboration opportunities and exchange experiences across the ecosystem. More than one hundred representatives from companies, healthcare organisations, technology centres, universities and institutions attended the event, once again consolidating BHC Eguna as the leading meeting point for the Basque health and biosciences ecosystem and as a key platform for promoting innovation, competitiveness and new development opportunities for the sector in Euskadi.