Swiss medtech company Ypsomed opens digital hub in Barcelona and plans to create 40 jobs

• From Catalonia, the company, a developer and manufacturer of injection and infusion systems for self-medication, will develop new digital and connected devices for the management of chronical diseases such as diabetes.
• To set up in Catalonia, the company has had the support of Catalonia Trade & Investment.
• Ypsomed has a global team of 1,700 people and an annual turnover of 375 million euros and it is present in 20 countries.

Swiss medtech company Ypsomed, a developer and manufacturer of injection and infusion systems for self-medication, will open a digital hub in Barcelona with the aim to create 40 jobs in the next two years. Ypsomed will centralize in Catalonia, together with its headquarters in Switzerland, the development of digital and connected devices for the improved treatment of chronic diseases such as diabetes, among others.

To set up in Catalonia, the company has had the support of Catalonia Trade & Investment, the Government’s agency for business competitiveness. According to Catalonia Trade & Investment data, there are currently 420 Swiss companies in Catalonia.

Ypsomed’s new development centre in Barcelona will be operational in September with a team of engineers; software, app and cloud system developers, and data scientists, among others. The centre will specialize in the development of mobile applications and digital services connected to cloud as well as using the Internet of Things (IoT) technology with the aim of making it easier for users to manage chronic diseases.

According to Ypsomed’s Vice President, Benedikt Baumgartner, the company chose Barcelona as it “reached above average scores for different criteria which were important to the company: with multiple universities and its rich economic environment Barcelona offers good access to highly-educated professionals, especially in the engineering and medtech disciplines,”, he explains. Moreover, according to Baumgartner, “working conditions, culture and travel options from/to Switzerland were other important factors in our decision making”. “And, without doubt, Barcelona is one of the most attractive cities to work and live in Europe”, he comments.

Ypsomed works in two main segments of business: the development of infusion solutions for the management of type 1 diabetes (mainly insulin pumps), as well as providing technology for the injection of liquid drugs to pharmaceutical companies from all over the world.

With more than 1,700 employees globally and an annual turnover of 400 million Swiss francs (about 375 million euros), the Swiss company has additional facilities in Germany and the Czech Republic and is present in about twenty countries through subsidiaries.

The company is supported by Catalonia Trade & Investment, which is dedicated to foreign investment attraction. The agency operates from Barcelona alongside a network of 40 foreign trade and investment offices around the world, aiming to attract new foreign investment projects to Catalonia.

According to data from Catalonia Trade & Investment, in Catalonia, the life sciences sector (which includes areas such as pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medtech and digital health) currently gathers around 1,060 companies. In addition, these companies have a turnover of over 17.8 billion euros and employ a total of 53,700 workers.