A couple of months ago, the European Commission and the industry trade association European Biopharmaceutical Enterprises held a closed meeting in Brussels to discuss a survey from ECORYS (Rotterdam), the Danish Technological Institute (DTI: Taastrup) and three other consultants undertaken as part of a €2.99 ($4.22) million contract from the Commission (see p. 110). The survey pointed to three (obvious) funding gaps during biotech development. It also estimated that 40% of European biotechs needed more cash before the end of 2010. Urgent problems, indeed, requiring urgent solutions. So what did the report recommend?

First, it proposed that the European Commission should consider sector-specific policy measures targeting the biopharmaceutical sector. In a rational world, this is plausible and sensible. But the European Union is not rational. It is an aggregation of formerly warring nation states each seeking economic advantages while acting out historical resentments through petty and circular administrative fine-tuning. To counter the nationalistic tendencies, the European Commission's competitiveness legislation forbids governments from instituting sector-specific incentives for industry. Nations can support companies that are small or young or research intensive, but they cannot single out specific sectors, like IT or biotech, for specific help. Short of overhauling the entire philosophy of the European endeavor, this recommendation, therefore, is a non-starter.

A second proposal in the report suggests that national and European policy makers should reform the financial markets across Europe to allow venture capitalists to operate across national borders. Again, nice idea, but a pipe dream. In the main, the European Union has 27 distinct financial systems with 27 national regulatory systems and asynchronicity throughout its multiple economic cycles. This, too, is a solution for the next decade or beyond.

Thankfully, by the time it went to press, the report had been stripped of suggestions that European biotech should be financed using gold bars from the croc at the end of the rainbow or getting Sir Bob Geldof and Bono to organize a Bio-Aid telethon. European biotech financing is a tough problem in need of imaginative solutions. But solutions must be practical—not outside the realms of reality.