It was the 13th of August 2013 that me, Maria and Panagiotis decided to create BIOEMTECH. There was no product or service in our mind; by the way, that was a pattern in several companies who were “Build to Last”, according to Jim Collins…
No specific plan in mind. Just the need to maintain a team of young researchers who met in 2007, grew inside Greek Academia, but from the very first days travelled, met people and worked with numerous scientists, whose papers we used to read. Stan, Roberto, Alberto, David, Simon, Arion……
We started running our first EU grants from a small 65m2 apartment, as “garages” are not that common in Athens. Along with Lefteris, we started the effort to transform our prototypes to what later became the “eyes”.
Around 2016 Natassa joined the team, to help us manage the increasing EU grants and cover the financial and admin needs.
At the same time, Maritina thought that she would just come for a PhD on simulations and maybe do some preclinical imaging.
2019 and we convinced Metavallon VC that the “eyes” can change the way preclinical imaging is performed. It does… slowly. But it rapidly changed our company and our mindset. Efthymis left Valencia and joined the “eyes” team, bringing fresh know-how.
2020 and our preclinical labs in “Demokritos” Research Center were ready. COVID was around the corner, but we started selling “eyes” worldwide and our preclinical CRO started offering services to academic groups, beyond EU grants.
June 2021 and Thodoris joined the team, bringing -at last- his non-engineering expertise.
The last three years are like surfing on the waves. Numbers, people, spaces keep growing. We are happy to see our “eyes” finding their way in well-known labs and companies. We are proud that global radiopharmaceutical companies decide to test their compounds in our hands. Today, we enjoy working and planning in a nice environment.
BIOEMTECH is a company which at the same time is a preclinical CRO and an instrumentation company, having the perspective of the manufacturer and the end user. Our software team creates tools that are exploited in our products and services. We participate actively in grants as we were raised in academia, but we can now bring back the industrial mindset.
BIOEMTECH’s people, are scientists who became entrepreneurs, but still feel scientists. We enjoy onboarding people whom we met in the past and admire their work. We try to be cool and at the same time meet deadlines and keep all standards high. We believe that a day here should give you energy and inspiration, so that you can do nice things at home.
Sometimes it is quite complicated to coordinate different business segments, people with different expertise, mentality and needs. But we know that high quality instruments and advanced organisms are complicated, and this is why they perform well, and they are here to last.
We do not see clients, but only collaborators. This is why we feel that our mission is: “Embracing scientists translate ideas, into outcomes”. If we cannot do it, we will gladly direct you to the one who can do it better. This is what a collaborator would do!
In the end… we feel that we have created something in our neighborhood and let’s see how far it can grow.