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The licensing season is upon us, not that it ever really goes away. Europe's annual cycle of one-to-one meetings, open-house presentations and bioethanolic soirées begins this month with Techvision's BioPartnering Europe (BPE) in London, followed in November by BIO-Europe in Düsseldorf, organized by EBD and the US Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). Sandwiched between them this year for the first time is a new event, EuroBiO, one major aim of which is to create an environment to promote early-stage partnering.

BioPartnering Europe and BIO-Europe have evolved over the years into meetings for the exchange of well-developed products or service lines (e.g., a phase 3 compound, candidates with human toxicity data and proof of concept in animals, or a neat assay method). In general, these are offerings for which risk has been reduced and reliability increased, and the value is relatively easy to assess. Deal discussions center less on price and more on the fit between business models, the prioritization of external projects and the alignment of expectations.

Partnering at EuroBiO, on the other hand, will be much more concerned with technology development and technology exchange as parties seek that combination of approaches that can provide solutions to industrially relevant problems, solutions that other firms will pay money for. The elements of the solutions are as likely to come from academia as from industry.

The other element that distinguishes EuroBiO as a partnering event is the presence of European Commission (EC) personnel. The EC's research funding staff will be at EuroBiO promoting corporate involvement in the new Framework Programme 7 (FP7). Their political masters at the European Parliament agreed in June that FP7 should be oriented much more to company needs, especially to the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Such firms have participated in previous EC-funded research but the firm generally would have little say in designing the project and, as a consequence, might not benefit much from its outcome. In FP7, in contrast, company-led projects are the first priority. In the life sciences category, for instance, there are around 85 projects worth some €200 million in which SMEs are expected to take the lead. That means they set the agenda, include the collaborators they want and direct the project towards their own ends. Small companies will now get up to 75% of their costs from the EC, compared to 50% in previous Framework Programmes. And, of course, biotech firms can also compete for all the other elements of FP7.

So EuroBiO 2006 delivers on two fronts: it combines straight science technology partnering with the chance to get access to European research money by identifying and meeting potential partners for FP7 projects.