Health and Life Sciences Cluster Bulgaria (HLSC) is a non-profit, membership-driven ecosystem builder based in Sofia. We unite companies, universities, research organisations, healthcare providers, public authorities, start-ups, technology-transfer actors and innovation-support organisations to translate life-science knowledge into practical health solutions. Our role is to connect Bulgaria and South-East Europe with European value chains, mobilise consortia and investment-ready innovation, and help innovators move from research and validation to adoption and scale.

What are the key priorities and strengths of your ecosystem?

Our core priority is to build a more connected, innovation-ready health and life-sciences ecosystem in Bulgaria and South-East Europe. We work across biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, personalised medicine, health data, artificial intelligence, advanced therapies, diagnostics and care innovation.

Our strengths include:

• Ecosystem orchestration. We convene stakeholders across academia, industry, clinical practice, government, technology and civil society, helping them identify common challenges, form consortia and develop solutions with a route to implementation.
• Personalised and precision medicine. Through our work in PRECISEU, InnoMedCatalyst and the MEDIC-NEST meta-cluster, we help connect regional ecosystems around the responsible uptake of health-data-enabled, personalised healthcare and advanced therapies.
• Health-data innovation and EHDS readiness. We contribute to the VELES Excellence Hub, which is developing a Regional Smart Health Data Space across South-East Europe. This provides a practical platform for interoperability, secure data exchange, data governance and innovation aligned with the European Health Data Space.
• Red biotechnology and pharmaceutical innovation. Through BIO-RED, Transbionet, we support cross-regional innovation, commercialisation and scale-up in red biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, including digital and green transition pathways.
• One Health and antimicrobial resistance. Through OHAMR, we contribute to research and innovation collaboration on surveillance, diagnostics and effective treatment of resistant pathogens.
• Innovation capacity and market access. HLSC provides project development, consortium-building, skills-development, networking, internationalisation and access-to-finance support. We connect innovators to hospitals, researchers, companies, investors, regulators and European networks.

Can you highlight key services, solutions, or initiatives in women’s health from your ecosystem?

Women’s health is an emerging cross-cutting priority for HLSC rather than a stand-alone disease-area programme. We can contribute through our personalised-medicine, health data and innovation-network capabilities to improve the visibility of sex and gender-sensitive health needs in research, innovation and service design.

Our potential contribution includes:

• Supporting innovators developing prevention, diagnostics, monitoring and care pathways for women across the life course, including reproductive health, maternal health, cancer prevention and chronic conditions that disproportionately affect women.
• Promoting the responsible use of representative, interoperable health data so that AI-enabled tools and evidence-generation approaches take account of sex and gender differences rather than reproducing data gaps.
• Connecting clinical, research, patient and business stakeholders to co-design needs-led pilots, validation studies and scale-up pathways.
• Embedding gender-equality considerations in cluster activities and international collaboration; HLSC has a designated Gender Equality Officer.

Are there any EU or international funding projects your ecosystem is involved in (or would like to join) related to women’s health?

HLSC is not currently presenting a dedicated women’s-health project as a flagship activity. However, its Horizon Europe and interregional portfolio—particularly PRECISEU, VELES and BIO-RED—provides relevant capabilities in personalised medicine, health data, AI-enabled innovation, biotechnology and cross-regional commercialisation.

We are actively interested in joining European and international consortia addressing women’s health through precision prevention, earlier diagnosis, reproductive and maternal health, women-focused oncology, menopause and healthy ageing, mental health, and the generation of equitable real-world evidence.

What types of partnerships are you seeking to strengthen your work in women’s health?

We seek partnerships with women’s-health clinical centres and professional societies; patient and community organisations; femtech and diagnostics innovators; biobanks, registries and data-space operators; pharmaceutical and medtech companies; investors; and regions interested in co-developing interoperable, inclusive pilots. We are especially interested in partners able to bring validated unmet needs, clinical-test environments, representative data and pathways to reimbursement or adoption.