The meeting was held during the visit of Mayor Yordanka Fandakova

The leading research institute in the Austrian capital - "Vienna Bio Centre" - opened doors for representatives of 11 companies from Sofia. They were part of the delegation of Sofia Municipality in the Austrian capital, led by the Mayor Yordanka Fandakova and also including the deputy chairman of Sofia Municipal Council Nikolai Stoynev.

How a cluster of research institutes and companies is managed, what kind of role Vienna municipality has in this project, and what the latest developments in the field of biochemistry are, were the key issues for the representatives of Sofia city companies specialised in finance, banking and biotechnologies.

The companies were invited by Sofia Municipal Investment Agency and its director, Vladimir Danailov, signed a bilateral City-to-City Agreement with the Manager of Vienna Business Agency, Gerhard Hirczi, a day earlier. The Bulgarian agency has a similar contract with London, which was discussed during the visit of Mayor Fandakova to the British capital in October last year, and is already operational.

"Vienna Bio Centre", or as it is known, VBC exists for about 30 years. It currently employs 1700 biotechnology researchers from over 70 countries and around 600 students. The centre has more than 90,000 square meters of offices and laboratories. Currently, VBC is an association of four research institutes, eighteen biotech companies, service companies and a business incubator. Among the scientists, there are Bulgarians. One of the Centre's achievements is the development of a technology for a 3D brain model of stem cells.