Biocant is a non-profit association aiming of the transfer of the technology and human resources in the Biotechnology Area. The founding partners of this association are CNC (Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology), CMC (Cantanhede Municipal Council), ABAP (an association that congregates seven Municipal Councils of the center region of Portugal).
Biocant started to operate in September 2005, under the scientific supervision of Prof. Carlos Faro (U. Coimbra) with four technological units, each headed by a senior scientist: Molecular Biotechnology (Prof. Euclides Pires, U. Coimbra), Genómica (Prof. M. Santos, U. Aveiro), Microbiologia (Prof. M. Costa, U. Coimbra), Biologia Celular (Prof. C. Duarte, U. Coimbra).
Each unit proceeded during 2006 the development of projects in collaboration with industry (pharmaceutics, wine, cork). Investigators from CNC were invited to integrate the research teams responsible for those projects.
Several companies from the Biomedical and Biotechnological areas showed interest in settling at Biocant Park to benefit from the capacity of Biocant to transfer technology and human resources. Criostaminal, the first company to settle at Biocant, started to fully operate in Biocant Park in 2006. At present the following companies have settled in the Park: Biognosis; Biocant Ventures; Crioestaminal – Saúde e Tecnologia, SA; geneBOX; GeneLab; Gene PreDiT, Lda; Haloris; Novexem Portugal Lda.; Vectorpharma. |
