Biovia—the health innovation cluster for Flanders, Belgium—is Europe’s first industry-led cluster to embody the ‘One Health’ concept, uniting medical biotech, medtech, digital health, agtech and industrial biotech to advance both human and planetary health.
“Across Flanders, the same technologies that power human medicine can also empower animal, plant and environmental health,” says Katrien Lorré, Biovia’s Domain Lead for medical biotech. “Our job is to connect those dots, break down the walls of the silos and help our members scale their solutions for faster, broader impact.”
Why One Health matters
At its core, One Health is the simple yet profound idea that human, animal, plant and planetary health are inseparable. It is the EU’s framework for tackling problems that cross species and sectors, from antimicrobial resistance to zoonotic diseases and environmental pollution. “One Health is not a slogan,” Lorré adds. “It’s Europe’s way of working smarter on shared challenges that no single sector can solve alone.”
Crossover health solutions turn that principle into practice. Diagnostics built for clinics can be adapted for veterinary and environmental monitoring. AI models trained on human data can flag patterns in animal health or agrifood systems. Biobased processes can cut fossil fuels while valorizing agricultural side streams. “Healthy soils grow healthy crops that feed healthy animals and people—it’s a continuum,” says Lorré. “Biotech is a powerful tool in that toolbox, alongside medtech and digital health.”
One Health in Flanders
In Flanders, the intersection of these different sectors has already been happening for some time. “Companies have created many platforms from nanobodies to bioreactors that pivot seamlessly from creating solutions for the clinic, to the farm and field,” Lorré says.
Biovia was created to channel that momentum into a more broad-reaching reality. Formed by the merger of flanders.bio and MEDVIA, it’s the first One Health innovation cluster in Europe. “But the push was bottom-up,” says Lorré. “Our members were already collaborating across boundaries. We’re simply accelerating the momentum in a strategic, unified way—aligning the ecosystem, so collaboration becomes the easiest path to better health.”
How One Health benefits Biovia members
Biovia turns One Health into member value by helping innovators find the funding, support, and partners they need to succeed. “We provide access to earmarked, non-dilutive funding from VLAIO for cross-domain R&D projects,” says Lorré. “We also run educational programs on topics like regulations and internationalization, to help members scale their solutions and enter markets faster.”
Biovia organizes flagship events like Knowledge for Growth and Science for Health to bring founders, researchers, clinicians, agrifood leaders and investors together. The cluster also represents its members at the European level by providing one strong voice for the whole Flemish ecosystem, making sure that member’s concerns and priorities are heard by the right decision makers. “We recently gathered input from our members for the European Commission for the forthcoming EU Biotech Act,” Lorré shares, as an example. “We provided advice on how we can boost infrastructure and talent, strengthen early and translational funding, and cut complexity that slows entrepreneurs.”
Connecting Flemish companies with the world
Biovia’s mission is to help companies bridge the gap between research and market. By fostering a better environment for health innovation in Flanders—where ideas, talent and capital move fluidly across domains—Biovia is connecting members with each other and with partners across Europe and beyond. That means easier access to collaborators, clinical and field testbeds, manufacturing capacity and international markets—the conditions innovation needs to thrive.
“We see Biovia as a catalyst and connector”, Lorré says. “Whether you’re a startup or scale-up, we help you find the partners and pathways that turn science into solutions. Through cross-pollination we get a more vibrant, diverse ecosystem all around.”
Article by Amy LeBlanc (Biovia – https://biovia.be/)
