Economy Ministry, Azenta Sign MoU on Continued Development of B Medical Systems in Luxembourg

On Tuesday 8 November 2022, the second day of the Luxembourg delegation's working visit to Boston and New York in the United States (US), Luxembourg's Ministry of the Economy and Azenta signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) aimed at the continued development of B Medical Systems in the Grand Duchy.

Day two of this working visit, chaired by His Royal Highness the Hereditary Grand Duke of Luxembourg, was dominated by the signing of an MoU between Luxembourg's Minister of the Economy, Franz Fayot, and the President and CEO of Azenta, Steve Schwartz, with a view to enabling the sustainable development of B Medical Systems' activities in the field of health technologies in Luxembourg. The signing ceremony took place following a visit by Azenta to Burlington, Massachusetts and in the presence of several senior representatives of the Ministry of the Economy, the Ministry of Higher Education and Research, the Luxembourg Trade and Investment Office in New York, Luxinnovation , Azenta and B Medical Systems; Azenta recently acquired the latter. The delegation then visited the Azenta Genomics facilities in Waltham.

Publicly listed in the US, Azenta is one of the world's leading providers of solutions for biomedical sciences. With operations in North America, Europe and Asia, the company provides leading pharmaceutical, biotechnology, academic and healthcare institutions worldwide with a complete suite of cold chain sample management solutions and genomics services in areas such as drug development, clinical research and advanced cell therapies.

In October 2022, Azenta acquired B Medical Systems. Founded in 1979 in Luxembourg, B Medical Systems is a pioneer in the medical equipment industry and a world leader in the cold chain for vaccines, present in more than 140 countries and holder of more than 100 patents. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, B Medical Systems saw its order book explode and, as a result, expanded its site, building there, with the financial support of the Ministry of the Economy, a new production concerning the latest generation equipment, with an area of ​​approximately 4,500 m2.

Confirming Azenta's desire to preserve the production activities of its B Medical Systems subsidiary in Luxembourg and to continue the projects undertaken by the subsidiary until then, the MoU details, on the one hand, the framework of the cooperation in terms of research, development and innovation which will be carried out in Luxembourg by Azenta and, on the other hand, confirms the intention of the Ministry of the Economy to continue to support the development of the company. The merger with Azenta should also allow B Medical Systems to access new markets, through the group's extensive network of customers in countries where B Medical Systems has not yet been present.

Minister Fayot said: "The fact that a world-renowned company like Azenta has acquired B Medical Systems, one of our industrial flagships, demonstrates the dynamism of the Luxembourg health technology sector, which is one of the pillars of Luxembourg's economic diversification strategy. Through this memorandum of understanding, our objective is to continue the good collaboration that already prevailed with B Medical Systems, particularly in its future research, development and innovation projects, as well as to identify possible synergies".

"We look forward to continuing our partnership and engagement with the Luxembourg government. B Medical Systems, which recently became part of Azenta, has a long history of operations in Luxembourg, and we intend to build on this already strong track record of growth and innovation", concluded Steve Schwartz, President and CEO of Azenta.

In parallel with the MoU signing, the delegation from Luxembourg's Ministry of Health, led by the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Health, Paulette Lenert, met representatives of the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission to capture the major trends in the evolution of public health and how to support this development by setting up a national framework.

Also on the agenda in Boston was an interview with the Harvard Business School, the objective of which was to understand the role of information technology and the cultural and organisational changes needed to implement "value-based healthcare". At the global level, at the level of healthcare, one can see that the increase in costs is not always accompanied by an improvement in the quality of care. The value-based healthcare movement seeks to address this problem by redefining how healthcare systems measure success based on the outcomes that matter most to the patient. In this context, the delegation also met the startup Avant-garde Health, which has developed a set of solutions enabling healthcare system actors to put the principles of value-based healthcare into practice.

The delegation then visited the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lab (MIT Lab), as well as the Mass eHealth Institute.

At the end of the day, the participants took the train to New York for the second leg of the trip.