Minister Fayot shown with Crown Prince Guillaume (r.) during the 22 February visit to Rotarex   Vincent Flamion

Minister Fayot shown with Crown Prince Guillaume (r.) during the 22 February visit to Rotarex   Vincent Flamion

Although he hasn’t given details, Fayot took advantage of the annual Luxinnovation event to announce the imminent launch of this new financing tool, which will deal with public-private partnerships, in addition to research grants seeking takers at Luxembourg and European level and in addition to the Business Partnership Facility.

The conference was the place to tease this measure and remind people that Luxembourg has invested in the health sector for 10 years “as one of the priority sectors to diversify our economy,” according to Fayot.

Today, 136 companies, half of which operate in diagnostics and medical devices, are established in Luxembourg, employing nearly 2,000 people, often highly qualified.

Champions Rotarex & B Medical Systems

In addition to the more hidden champions that are Rotarex and B Medical Systems, the co-founder and CEO of Advanced Biological Laboratories (ABL) came to present the spectacular evolution of this spin-off of the Luxembourg Institute of Health born in 2000. Today, according to Chalom Sayada, the company specialising in the detection of covid-19, HIV and tuberculosis has 40 exclusive distributors in as many countries and 150 microbiology laboratories. It works with Roche, Abbott, the National Health Laboratory (LNS) and Laboratoires réunis. The doctor announced a new partnership with LNS on covid-19 testing and tracing.

Others, like Jérémy Amzellog of Eylio (Strasbourg) or Andreas Kremer (ITTM), explained how their tools on the quality control of products such as masks, gloves, glasses or respirators for the former, and the quality of medical data for the latter, had an impact on the safety of the healthcare chain, in Luxembourg and in Europe.

The operational director of B Medical Systems Mario Treinen spoke in detail how the different characteristics of the covid-19 vaccines had an impact on the choices of governments and on the logistics of the flagship products. “How can we respond to the different temperature needs of our fridges? The company's engineers ended up creating 'flexibility' that allows BioNTech-Pfizer or Moderna vaccines to be stored under the same conditions.”

Rotarex last week welcomed Crown Prince Guillaume and Fayot for the inauguration of their new production lines. The world leader in gas control products, systems and solutions for industries ranging from medical to food will move in 2023 to a 30,000m2 space in Bissen. The site will include 8,500m2 of offices and 21,500m2 of production space.

"At Luxinnovation, we are very proud to have been able to support companies that have innovated to face this crisis. However, we are aware that there is still a lot to be done, including in the short term," said Jean-Philippe Arié, manager of the Luxembourg healthtech cluster. 

"In a sector characterised by a great diversity of hyper-specialised players, the implementation of broad and sometimes unexpected collaborations is a daily challenge. However, these partnerships accelerate the market launch of innovative solutions. Our role, as an innovation agency, is to be a leading player in these relationships, both in the context of this crisis and in the longer term."

This article was originally published on Paperjam.lu and has been translated and edited for Delano.