Italy celebrates the European Week of biotech

From the 6th to 12th of October all countries in Europe and Italy will host the second edition of Biotech Week.  A whole week dedicated to discussions about biotechnology in their different fields of application. Assobiotec, the National Association for the development of biotechnology, which is part of Federchimica, is the Italian partner for this event, and the promoter of several initiatives seeking to promote the role of biotechnology to improve the quality of life.  Discussions, workshops, performances, exhibitions, flash mob, training courses, and a full day of Open House where many companies and research centers will participate.

These will be days full of initiatives, aimed at involving the broadest number of actors and audiences of different nature (up to today, the Italian cities involved are about twenty), focusing each time on the different applications of biotechnology, with the aim of contributing to increase public awareness and attention of the Institutions regarding the positive impact that biotechnology has, and will continue to have, on all aspects of human life, from the health to the

all aspects of human life, from the health to the nutrition, to the environment.  Not to mention the important contribution that they make to the economy in terms of competitiveness, growth and the creation of highly skilled jobs.

According to the results from the “Biotechnology in Italy 2014” report, made by Assobiotec in cooperation with EY, as of today, in Italy the biotech sector is made out of 422 companies involved in Research and Development and it is worth over € 7 billion in revenue. Overall, the Italian biotech industry is the third largest in Europe after Germany and the UK, for the number of firms considered “pure biotech” (264).