the BioConnect Medical Centre, which is situated in Canewood, St. Michael. It is acknowledged as one of the emerging Barbadian companies in the life sciences and biotechnology sector that is eager to provide its services to the rest of the world.
The Barbados Industrial Development Corporation (BIDC), formerly known as Export Barbados, has taken notice of BioConnect. According to Mark Hall, the BIDC’s chief executive officer, the life wellness industry is expanding by between five and ten percent yearly.
“We’re shaping it out that those life-centric industries can use Barbados as that hub to really build out the sector, do research and development, and also to build out scalable industries but high-value services and products,” he said, adding that the sector was ripe for investment.
“I’m really excited about menopause as a specific, targeted niche area that is catering to women all over the globe, domiciled here in Barbados and in partnership with tourism,” Hill said. “We are positioning the life sciences space where we have an eco-system that makes access to scientific technology a lot more affordable.”
“We are here for the world; we are not here only for Barbados,” she said during a recent tour of the facility by a team from Export Barbados (BIDC), led by Hill.
“We are in Barbados because we found Barbados was the perfect location for this. It is the perfect place to serve the Caribbean, where there is a huge lack, even bigger than in Barbados.
“Our mission is to create a menopause society for the Caribbean to create a community that will bring women together, and it will be a platform where we provide education, evidence-based medicine, and … a community for women to exchange experiences.”
Menopause impacts every bodily function of a woman and is not just limited to gynaecology, according to Dr. Corona, the sole certified menopause specialist in Barbados.
She claimed that BioConnect’s objective was to help menopausal women become healthier women by treating them holistically.
The clinic, which opened on May 23, welcomed 125 new patients in its first month as it pursued the objective of transforming the health-care environment and encouraging total wellness, according to Rachel de Gale, chief executive officer of the BioConnect.
She claimed that so far, patients from the Caribbean and North America have sought treatment at the clinic, and that its owners welcomed the support and technical assistance they had received from Export Barbados and were prepared to contribute to Barbados’ achievement of its life sciences objective.
“If you take a look at your telephone screen and you type ‘B’, ‘I’, ‘O’, 246 comes up; it is the area code of Barbados,” De Gale said. “Barbados was always destined to be the bio-life sciences headquarters of the world. No one else has our area code, and now it’s time for us to rise up; it’s time for us to be the leader.”
BioConnect offers treatment for hormone optimization, bone health, incontinence, sexual health, weight management, and aesthetic medicine in addition to providing gynaecological services and menopause management specifically designed for each woman. Because most research or recommendations target Caucasians, BioConnect also plans to undertake studies to gather information and create guidelines specifically for women of colour.
