From hand blenders and juicers to tests for detecting infectious diseases. After its closure in 2008 and years of abandonment, the former Braun factory in Esplugues de Llobregat will be revived, converted into the global research and development (R&D) center of the Dutch multinational Qiagen. With an investment of 13 million euros, the company plans to concentrate 400 workers by 2027 in the new facilities, where it will locate offices, laboratories, and a factory on a total area of 8,000 square meters.
Qiagen has been present in Barcelona for years. In 2018, the group acquired Stat-Dx, a small startup that had been born in the Barcelona Science Park (PCB). Founded by Jordi Carrera and Rafael Bru in 2010, the company had developed a diagnostic test that allowed processing any type of sample without prior preparation and analyzing different infectious diseases such as respiratory or gastrointestinal ones, in addition to doing so in an hour. "It was a technology that already existed, but we simplified it, a bit like Nespresso capsules did with coffee," explains Àlex Boada, current head of the Qiagen center in Barcelona, which is still located in the PCB.
When Qiagen came across Stat-Dx, as its CEO, Thierry Bernard, recalls, the emerging company had not even started to have sales and they were about to finish their product based on molecular biology. The acquisition, for an amount of 154 million euros, allowed accelerating its growth, without diluting it in the group where they were incorporated. They have been expanding in the PCB, where they occupy almost 3,000 square meters with a staff of 230 workers, and they have done so much that the scientific infrastructure has become too small for them, even more so now that it is completely full and facing its expansion. After the integration into Qiagen, the founders of Stat-Dx left the company and created a new startup, DeepUll.
Today, the QIAstat-Dx test, which fits in the palm of your hand, is present in more than 120 countries and generates almost 95 million euros annually (100 million dollars), starting to record profits. With agreements with health sector companies such as Lilly, Merck or AstraZeneca, 1.2 million of these diagnostic tests are sold, validated by a machine manufactured by Qiagen itself, with 9,000 distributed worldwide. Globally, Qiagen, based in Venlo, generates almost 2 billion euros and has 6,000 employees.
The tool created at the PCB was key during the pandemic, being able to detect if someone had contracted coronavirus in a short time, considering that the first tests that existed took days to give results. "It was one of the first responses to covid. It saved thousands of people," Bernard remarked. Following the Nespresso simile and the different varieties of capsules that the brand has, Boada says that now they are able to reach more pathologies such as meningitis, urinary infections and blood diseases. By 2028, they want to sell 200 million tests and cover diseases such as Parkinson's.
All this will be done at the R&D center in Esplugues, which is expected to be operational in 2026. It will be more focused on the development of new solutions than on manufacturing, although it will have a 600 square meter clean room with a couple of production lines, in the same space where juicers were previously made. Production is now equally divided between Barcelona and Germany, but it is expected that in the future the German plant will gain more weight. Qiagen will hire engineers, biologists and computer scientists for the Catalan headquarters, with which they want to attract national and international talent. "Now our relatives know us and little else. We want students who leave university not only to want to go to work at Seat and HP, but also to want to come with us," says Boada.
Esplugues, new hub for the health sector
For some months now, Esplugues has been observing how it is positioning itself on the map of the health sector. With an eye on the arrival of Hospital Clínic, the city has seen projects materialize, such as the Sant Joan de Déu rare diseases center, which has already laid its first stone, and investments have arrived from companies like Stoneshield Capital, in the old Corberó factory, and Vithas, which will build a 40,000 square meter private hospital. "From Esplugues, we decided to bet on creating a health sciences hub, creating the conditions for things to happen. Now it is satisfying to see how they materialize and we have become a new metropolitan centrality," said its mayor, Eduard Sanz, who recently succeeded the historic Pilar Diaz in office.
The council expects Qiagen's investment to attract more companies to Esplugues. For now, on the top floor of the old Braun facilities, there is already another tenant, the British company Smith and Nephew, with 1,700 square meters, also from the health sector, in their case, dedicated to developing medical technology for the repair, regeneration, and replacement of soft and hard tissues. The building, owned by Conren Tramway since 2022, has a total area of 18,000 square meters, of which about 8,000 square meters remain free, and has capacity for about 2,500 workers. The Barcelona developer has invested 50 million euros in both the purchase and the renovation. The renovation was carried out by the BCA architecture studio. Before Braun was installed, there was PIMER, an acronym for Pequeñas Industrias Mecánico Eléctricas Reunidas (Small United Mechanical Electrical Industries), a company that arrived in Esplugues in 1958 and merged with the German brand in 1962.