For its first European base, pharmaceutical consultant Amador Bioscience has chosen to set up shop in Limburg province, Belgium. The company, which already had branches in the United States and China, was attracted to Hasselt because of the proximity of the University of Hasselt (UHasselt), which has a strong reputation in biostatistics. In the coming years, Amador Bioscience is looking to hire 120 biostatisticians and biomedical engineers at its Belgian site.
This article was authored by Andy Furniere. Header image: Corda Campus in Hasselt
Pharmaceutical consultant Amador Bioscience is specialized in the digital design and simulation of drug tests, to make sure that clinical trials can be carried out as efficiently as possible. This way, the development of medicines by their clients is streamlined and sped up. Amongst others, the company uses tools like artificial intelligence (AI) and statistical data to achieve this.
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Amador Bioscience was founded in 2018 by four American experts who previously worked for global pharmaceutical powerhouses such as AstraZeneca, Novartis and Amgen. In its relatively short existence, the firm already supported more than a hundred clinical projects and raised around 85 million euros. Its headquarters are located in the US – specifically in Pleasanton, California – but the company also has a branch in Hangzhou, China.
Limburg: an attractive area
Amador Bioscience has now also begun its European expansion, which will be coordinated from Limburg. There were several reasons why Limburg managed to attract this global player: “Limburg province not only has an excellent strategic location, but also a strong academic reputation and a huge knowhow in the domain of life sciences and high-tech industry,” said CEO Bing Wang in a press statement. “We, for our part, believe that we can use our twenty years of experience in the sector to boost the development of the pharmaceutic industry in Limburg and the rest of Europe.”
“Limburg province not only has an excellent strategic location, but also a strong academic reputation and a huge knowhow in the domain of life sciences and high-tech industry.” – Bing Wang
A crucial factor in the choice for Limburg was the proximity of the UHasselt, which has a particularly good reputation in biostatistics. This is a big help for one of Amador Bioscience’s most important challenges: the search for talent. Concretely, the company aims to hire about 120 new employees with a Master’s degree in biostatistics or biomedical sciences at its Belgian site in the next four years.
“UHasselt is very proud that it helped to encourage Amador Bioscience to come to Limburg,” stated UHasselt rector Bernard Vanheusden. “As a civic university, we help to build a strong region in which it is good to study, work and live. The arrival of Amador is a good illustration of how we do that: by offering young talent chances to develop themselves and by providing companies with the highly-skilled staff they need.”
Big investments in the region
Amador Bioscience will start up its activities in Limburg at the beginning of December 2021. In the coming years, the company plans to invest up to 8.5 million euros in its Belgian site. To begin with, it will operate from offices at the Corda Campus in Hasselt, where about 250 companies are already active. But in the near future, Amador Bioscience will move into facilities that are yet to be built at the new Health Campus Limburg in Diepenbeek. The Health Campus project has previously also won over the medical research center Anima Research Center.
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“The Health Campus will become a hub for innovation in healthcare, amongst others for the digitalization of the healthcare sector. So Limburg has to gain global fame in the sector, and the arrival of a global player like Amador Bioscience fits the bill perfectly,” said Tom Vandeput, Limburg’s deputy for economy and chairman of POM Limburg – Limburg’s economic development agency. POM Limburg played a decisive role in the negotiations with Amador Bioscience.
