Lluís Chico, managing partner at NEOS Surgery, has been appointed to the first Health Engineering Commission of the Association of Industrial Engineers of Catalonia (Col·legi d’Enginyers Industrials de Catalunya), announced on 20 February in Barcelona.
This commission has been created to help position engineering as one of the pillars of the future of the healthcare sector, as well as a platform for sharing knowledge among professionals. It is comprised of Marc Pérez Pey (Hartmann Group), president; Marc Pérez Puigdengoles (Almirall), vice-president; Sílvia Baldira (Medtech Global), Josep Carbó (Mediktor), Jordi Pujol (Roche Diagnostics), Ramon Maspons (Catalan Ministry of Health), Carlos Nueno (Advance Medical), Ferran Rodríguez (Hospital Clinic Barcelona) and Marc Rodríguez, Jordi Mateu and Xavier López (Paul Hartmann) as the other members.
Lluís Chico has also been a member of the CataloniaBio & HealthTech Board of Directors since 2018.
Engineers to innovate and optimise processes
The event included a panel discussion on the present and future of healthcare engineering featuring engineers with various roles in the industrial sector, hospital setting and at start-ups.
One of the issues that was highlighted was the need for more engineering in the sector to optimise processes and identify where value is located to make the system more sustainable. Lluís Chico noted that there is “a big margin for growth and demand is always growing. In the medical devices arena, for example, engineers are part of every step of the project.” At NEOS Surgery, 50% of the team has engineering degrees.
He also pointed out that data, electronic and robotics engineering are key to continue growing and innovating in the sector.
Catalonia has more than 1,000 companies in the healthcare sector (pharmaceutical, medical technology and devices, biotechnology, scientific services, etc.), with strong export capacity, that provide high-quality employment for 53,371 people and saw €17.8 billion in revenue in 2019.
