ALAMEDA--- As the European Biotech Industry Catches Up, California Biotech Companies Increasingly Seek European Partners
California firms have always flocked to Europe to seek partnerships deals with the large European pharmaceutical firms, but increasingly they are beginning to tap into opportunities with Europe's growing biotechnology industry and its emerging mid-size pharmaceutical firms. Twenty-three (23) leading biotechnology firms from around the state will attend the BioEurope partnering conference in Frankfurt, Germany this November 16-19, 2003 as part of the California Mission to BioEurope organized by Advancing California's Emerging Technologies (ACET) and the US Department of Commerce. The California firms will add to the largest US attendance at a major European conference with US firms rivaling the number of local German firms at the BioEurope conference in Frankfurt.
"With the EU government's aggressive policies towards developing the emerging biotechnology industry from stem cell research to government investment funds, Europe's biotech industry is catching up and California firms cannot ignore both the potential market opportunity for life science research and drug discovery technologies as well as potential collaborative R&D partners," said Sam Doctors, CEO of ACET, the lead organizer of the California Mission.
Although Europe's biotech industry's overall revenue of $7.5 billion is still much smaller than the US revenue total of $42.6 billion in 2001, the European biotech industry is expanding rapidly. The number of biotech companies in Europe was 1,879 surpassing the US total of 1,457 in 2001 (Source: Burrill & Company Biotech 2003 Report).
"Our current commercialization objectives include the development of partners and clients in Europe for our discovery biology platform technologies targeted at the pharma, diagnostic and ag/bio industries. Our strategic plans include the eventual development of a local physical presence in Europe to directly service these relationships. In addition to Europe's leading pharmaceutical firms, the rapidly growing European biotechnology industry and mid-size pharma firms constitute an important core market for us," said mission participant Jeff Peterson, CEO, Target Discovery Inc., Palo Alto, CA. Target Discovery's transformational technologies and anticipated industry impact have attracted over $7 million in equity funding from private investors. The company is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, south of San Francisco in Silicon Valley.
"European medium-sized pharmaceutical firms are also becoming a major force in the bio-partnering scene. Californian biotech firms who do not possess blockbuster drugs but who are developing unique "orphan drugs" are finding that European mid-size pharma companies are increasingly interested in licensing these technologies," said Carola Schropp, Principal of the E.B.D Group, BioEurope conference organizer.
Last April, ACET organized a successful mission of 15 California biotech firms to BioSquare a biotech-pharma partnering conference in France. The 15 California firms as a group reported potential partnership deals that could be worth up to a total of $400 million over 2 years.
ACET organizes these missions to major European biotechnology conferences as part of its broader EU Export Initiative, funded, in part, by a grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce Market Development Cooperator Program (MDCP). ACET partners for this program are the California Environmental Protection Agency and the Bay Area World Trade Center. As part of this program, California mission companies attending BioEurope will receive discounted conferences fees. ACET and the US Department of Commerce will also host a California Luncheon Reception on November 17th at BioEurope to highlight the California firms. Sponsors for the reception include M+W Zander and the German-American Business Association (GABA).
California biotech firms participating on the mission to BioEurope include: Affymax, Arena Pharmaceuticals, CellGate, Cell Genesys, Chemical Diversity Labs, Corgentech, Depomed, Elitra Pharmaceuticals, Idun Pharmaceuticals, Proteomtech, Raven Biotechnologies, Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Sagres Discovery, Salmedix, Signal Analytics, Stressgen Biotechnologies, Favrille, Kosan Biosciences, Microislet, Prediction Sciences, Target Discovery, Valentis and Xencor.
About ACET and Conference Organizers
ACET is a small business accelerator, shepherding biotechnology and environmental startups through the early phases of their development and bringing new technologies to market through a laboratory and business-based incubator. In addition to organizing international trade missions and foreign trade seminars for California companies, ACET facilitates technology transfer from federal laboratories. In operation since mid May 1998, ACET has graduated 10 successful newly minted biotechnology companies. ACET companies have attracted more than $200 million in capital investment and created more than 500 direct jobs, resulting in more than 1,000 indirect jobs in the Bay Area. ACET recently received $6.44 million from the US Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration to expand and build a new 40,000 square foot state-of-the-art laboratory incubator facility to be located in Alameda, supported by $1.61 million in local matching funds. With this expansion, ACET will be able to accommodate 35 to 40 biotechnology and environmental technology startup companies. Www.greenstart.org/acet.
For more information on the BioEurope conference, please go to www.ebdgroup.com/bioeurope. E.B.D. Group, Inc. with offices in Carlsbad, CA and Munich, Germany, as well as the UK and Canada is an international business development and clinical development practice serving the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and service industries. With their partners BIO, BioCentury and BioSquare SAS, E.B.D. Group also organizes a number of conferences targeted to the global life science communities. The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), headquartered in Washington, DC., represents more than 1000 biotechnology companies, academic institutions and state biotechnology centers in 47 U.S. states and 26 nations.