Bayer sets up an open innovation center in Barcelona

The health sector company Bayer has inaugurated a new open innovation center in Barcelona called LifeHub Barcelona (LHB), located in Bayer Iberia’s headquarters in Sant Joan Despí.

This new space will focus on promoting and accelerating innovative projects in health and nutrition. The center will create contacts between startups, universities, technological institutions and innovation and research centers, so that they can grow, learn and evolve together.

The opening itself showcased this ambition and counted on the presence of prominent members of the local Catalan innovation ecosystem, such as the BCN Health Hub, the Collider Program from the Mobile World Capital and the Polytechnic University of Catalonia.

Bernardo Kanahuati, CEO at Bayer Iberia (Spain and Portugal), said: "Working jointly with the local ecosystem is essential to accelerate and narrow down our activity in essential areas such as health and food".

"With LifeHub we’re taking one more step in this direction, opening up the doors to our house and offering our know-how and resources as well as our over 120 years of experience in this country", he added.

The Bayer LifeHub is a 600 m² space dedicated to innovation programs in three specific areas: the promotion of innovation culture within the organization, the connection with different bodies belonging to the local innovation ecosystem and the promotion of entrepreneurship via the identification, support and development of local startups and entrepreneurs.

Founded in Germany, the Bayer Group currently has some 100,000 employees and showed a turnover of 44.1 billion euros in 2021.

Source: Bayer