Close to Bilbao in Northern Spain, biotech firm Biolan designs and manufactures diagnostic products that are being used in more than 60 countries, including at factories owned by dairy giant Groupe Lactalis and Thai fish processor Thai Union Group Pcl.
It wasn’t always this way. When Asier Albizu co-founded the firm, it was a three-person business that supplied grape quality assessments to Spain’s wine industry. But as the domestic economy got stuck in a long-running slump after the collapse of a property bubble in 2008, domestic demand suffered, so Biolan looked elsewhere for business.