CATALONIA.HEALTH appoints Arantxa Sanz as CEO. With this new leadership, a new phase begins, focused on consolidating its positioning in the ecosystem and strengthening alliances between the scientific, business and institutional worlds.

Sanz holds a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Nottingham and a degree in Physics from the Autonomous University of Madrid. She has extensive complementary training in research management and institutional leadership, and in regulation and market access for medical devices.

With a career spanning more than two decades in research, knowledge transfer and the promotion of science policies, Sanz has developed his professional career both in companies and in excellent research institutions, such as the Centre de Recerca Matemàtica (CRM) and the Institut de Bioenginyeria de Catalunya (IBEC). She has successful experiences in fostering public-private collaboration (Nanomed Spain) and the interaction of ecosystem agents with public policy makers (Aliança SOMMa).

The new director general has also played an important role in promoting open science and the articulation of inter-institutional units to address cross-cutting challenges such as artificial intelligence applied to life sciences or public health, as part of the strategic plans to which she has contributed.

"I take on this challenge with great enthusiasm and responsibility. It is a key moment to amplify the impact of research and innovation in health, and CATALONIA.HEALTH must be a fundamental part of strengthening collaboration between the different agents of the system from a transformative and open vision", says Sanz.

For her part, Mariona Serra, President of CATALONIA.HEALTH, has valued the incorporation, assuring that “Arantxa Sanz's experience in institutional leadership, her ability to generate strategic alliances and her global vision will be fundamental to consolidate and grow the role of CATALONIA.HEALTH as a benchmark organisation in the country's health and innovation ecosystem”.

With this appointment, the organisation reinforces its commitment to a governance aligned with the current challenges of the health sector at a time of transformation of the health model and new needs, and for a strategy that integrates research, technological development, talent and transfer as the cornerstones of social and economic transformation.