The biomedical sector, according to a definition proposed in 1978 by the US Congress Office of Technology Assessment and adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO), includes all companies that produce equipment, instruments, drugs and procedures used for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease and for rehabilitation.
In no other sector is manufacturing accuracy as vital as in biomedicine: precision engineering parts used in surgical instruments, prostheses or diagnostic equipment must guarantee maximum accuracy and the highest quality standards demanded by professionals.
The biomedical cluster in Veneto
The first turning shops producing for and specialising in the biomedical sector began to emerge in the 1950s, as scientific medicine spread through doctors and health professionals who decided to exploit their research and start new businesses. Yet as early as the 18th century there were eminent scientists with in-depth knowledge of both physics and mathematics and medicine and biology, not to mention antiquity, which has left us archaeological finds of “refined” mechanical tools for trepanation and surgery.
The first managers in this emerging sector were therefore health professionals and “doctor entrepreneurs” seeking major product innovations. This is the context for the Veneto biomedical cluster, which has emerged as a system of significant economic and productive importance. The famous “Veneto model”, and that of north-east Italy in general, is characterised by a wide spread of small and medium-sized companies across the region, which in the last decade has delivered unparalleled growth, even compared with Europe’s most industrialised areas.