BioValley: Top trinational Eurobiocluster in the heart of Europe

As a unique trinational life sciences are located where France, Germany and Switzerland meet, BioValley has gained, since its creation in 1996, worldwide recognition in establishing a network linking more than 2,000 associates involved in life sciences. This network represents over 500 companies, research institutions, technology transfer agencies, public institutions for economic development, bankers and venture capital companies.

BioValley's main objectives are:

  • speeding up technology transfers to boost the creation of biotech start-ups

  • becoming the most attractive European biotech region for new investments

  • promoting new alliances with international partners.

With the support of the European Union and in the scope of INTERREG II, a programme for cross-border cooperation, BioValley had access to a 2.2 e million budget which has led to the development of many services available to 2,000 network members and has also helped the emergence of 140 new companies within the three regions covered by BioValley's activities.

BioValley publishes a newsletter four or five times per year with a circulation of over 5,000 copies. BioValley also maintains an internet site which will soon include an extranet providing customised services to members. BioValley is present at all main European and international trade fairs and offers companies the possibility to take part at reduced rates (e.g. BIO in the US, BIODIGITAL in Freiburg, r&d in Life Sciences in Basle and at the Crossroads for Biotechnologies 2002).

BioValley also supports major scientific events, always aiming at serving the development of its main centres of scientific excellence, including gene therapy, bio-computing, nanotechnology, tissue engineering, etc. The latest such involvement took place last October on the occasion of the BioValley Life Sciences Week in Basle and Lõrrach which gathered over 700 participants.

In Autumn 2002, BioValley will resume the development of new initiatives and begin its latest Community programme, INTERREG III, which will have a budget of nearly 2.4 € million. It is scheduled to end by mid-2005.

BioValley is now a registered trademark, protected internationally and acknowledged as a quality-label. It will be the basis for the development of a whole range of products and services, allowing BioValley to self-finance its activities and ensure continued services for the members of the network, without having to depend on Community and public funds.

BioValley: A vision for the future

The next stage of BioValley's development will mainly concentrate on the reinforcement of its network's trinational dimension and the growth of its product range to support self-funding activities.

Philippe Poindron, President of the BioValley Central - Association

“I emphasize that the Central Association (CA) represents a guarantee of BioValley's trinational identity:

  • the CA must facilitate all scientific, economic or managerial collaborative efforts, at bi- or trinational level, within the scope of the Call for Projects as foreseen in INTERREG III.

  • The CA will have to draw up its own charter, enshrining trinationality as an essential principle of the association's mode of operation.

  • The CA must harmoniously coordinate the development of national associations and facilitate relationships and exchanges between them.

  • The CA will have to establish a private structure to provide self-financing independent of public funds.”

At present, BioValley rests on four structures: a central association - who is the owner of the BioValley trademark - and three national associations based in each of the three countries. A legal entity will shortly be established to allow direct marketing activities including the services offered by BioValley to its members. The trademark BioValley will be offered for use to service providers intending to develop products bearing this label.

Georg H. Endress, Honorary President of the BioValley Central Association

“Publicly funded financing of the BioValley runs out in 2005. Time has come to look beyond this date to guarantee the continuation of the BioValley Network activities. A trinational institution or company must now be funded to create income through licensing the trademark, through offering trinational services and maybe also through private fundraising.”

Next steps: From network to cluster

The new INTERREG III programme will lead BioValley to reinforce the promotion of its centres of scientific excellence and facilitate easier access to all economic support for business creation and development within BioValley.

The programme is based on four elements:

1. Determining BioValley's profile:

The first stage will identify BioValley's centres of excellence, defining its profile and position within the sectors of life sciences from a scientific and economic standpoint. All communication and marketing actions will be focused on these centres of excellence.

2. Launching a programme of “Call for projects”:

This programme will highlight the centres of excellence and promote bi- or trinational partnerships of a scientific and/or economic nature.

The criteria to be fulfilled for taking part in BioValley's call for projects will be published once the results of the studies conducted in scientific centres will be available.

3. Implementing specific economic and marketing tools:

Specific economic and marketing tools will be developed to facilitate the creation and establishment of new businesses within BioValley.

4. Developing and reinforcing marketing and communication actions:

To increase awareness and raise the profile of BioValley's centres of excellence, marketing and communication actions will be developed, working with the media, to inform the general public and life science professionals on a worldwide scale

BioValley's main conditions for biotech companies:

Encompassing 70,000 students in five scientific universities and universities of applied science within BioValley's territory and over 15,000 scientists involved in life sciences of whom 5,000 hold a higher academic degree, BioValley intends to contribute to a positive economic environment by supporting the development of employment possibilities aimed at a workforce which is both highly qualified and readily available.

Universities, laboratories and businesses which are BioValley members welcome students and workers from everywhere. The region is wide open to international influences and offers individuals originating from many countries, a variety of business locations and favourable living conditions. In addition, the region is multilingual and there are international schools.

BioValley fulfills the three main criteria considered as essential for a successful biocluster:

1. Excellent quality of higher education and research establishments:

As mentioned above, BioValley ranks among the top three European bio-regions, including 15,000 scientists in life sciences, 70,000 students, over 160 academic or public institutions and more than 400 research groups.

Five Nobel Prizes for research in chemistry, immunology and genetics have been awarded to scientists working in BioValley over the past 15 years.

Romeo Paioni, Head of Scientific and External Affairs, Novartis Pharma AG, Vice-president of the BioValley Platform Basel Society

“Following the push given to the development of the project by the merger of CIBA and Sandoz in 1996 and the creation of several new companies with the financial backing from the Novartis Venture Fund, BioValley enjoyed further dynamic growth over the last years.

The geographic proximity between Big Pharma and a growing number of specialized Biotech companies within the same Life Sciences cluster contributes to facilitate and strengthen networking as well as Knowledge and Technology Transfer underlying potential collaborations among world-class players in the field.”

2. High density of world-class life science companies and start-ups:

Three main international “big pharma” companies are present on BioValley's territory, with their headquarters: Novartis, Roche and Aventis. Other global Pharma and Life Science players in BioValley are Eli Lilly, Sanofi-Synthelabo, Amersham, Johnson & Johnson, Dow, DuPont, Syngenta etc.

About 40% of the world's pharma industry is established in BioValley's territory.

Between 1997 and 2001, about 150 start-ups have been founded, many of them spin-offs from the pharma industry but also from academic research institutions.

According to Ernst & Young's Life Science Report 2000, the pharma industry has increased the outsourcing rate of all R&D activities from 4% in 1996 to 30% in 2000 and this trend is presently increasing. The establishment of numerous spin-offs is expected within BioValley and many projects for new biotech parks are already underway. This will create new employment opportunities.

Dr. Eszter Tánczos, Chief Scientific Officer BioTissue Technologies AG, Freiburg/Germany:

“For BioValley, tissue engineering (tissue grafts) has been a key topic, from the very outset. In recent years we have succeeded in three occasions in hosting the world's largest tissue engineering congress here in Freiburg - and this also testifies to the strongly innovative nature of our products.”

Entomed was formed in 1999 on the initiative of Pr Jules Hoffmann of the CNRS in Strasbourg within the BioValley scientific network. Entomed has successfully established a robust R&D platform to discover and develop organic small molecule and peptides targeted at a broad range of therapeutic areas including anti-infectious diseases, cancer, wound healing, anti-viral and immuno-modulation. Within the past three years, Entomed has expanded with the valuable support of the BioValley team, environment and infrastructure, to be now the world leader in the discovery and development of novel drugs derived from the biology of insects.

2. BioValley a chance for Start-ups:

“Three years ago we (Thomas Giller and Olivier Valdenaire) founded Axovan. We also evaluated other sites including Paris or Munich. Finally we decided to go for Basle, attractive in our eyes because of its long history with pharmacentical and chemical industry. Now established in this southern pole of the BioValley, we have seen many ties that it was indeed easier to attract highly qualified collaborators and we could also directly feel ahigh level of acceptance by the population as well as some great support by the local finance and political representatives.”

3. Highly favourable economic conditions:

a) Easy access to business locations:

Several innovation parks in BioValley's territory ecist which are suited for biotech companies. These include the Innovation Park in Allschwil and Reinac, near Basle (Switzerland), the Freiburg Biotech Park (Germany), the Innovation Centre in Lorrach (Germany), the Innovation Park in Illkirch, near Strasbourg (France) and the Bio-incubator in Strasbourg (France).

Other project for the construction of new Biotech parks in Basle, Strasbourg, Colmar and Mullhouse are currently underway and the Freiburg Biotech Park has just completed the extension of its buildings.

All these Life Sciences parks will be integrated in a nnetowrk and promoted in the scope of INTERREG III.

b) Facilitating access to venture-capital:

Many venture-capital businessess are either established in BiValley's territory or acting as partners within our network, investing in businesses located in all three countries. Even if the economic situation has slowed down in the course of the last few months, the interest of investors for biotechnologies remains strong and sound projects will always find takers.

Since the start of BioValley in 1996, attitudes have changed and the world of finance follows closely the developments in the field of biotechnologies. New means of funding are gradually set up to answer the specific needs of these businesses which represent the market of the 21st century.

Dr. Andre Lamotte, Managing Director NMT

“Since its foundation in 1997, NMT has strengthened and expanded its ties with all relevant institutions and organisations in the BioValley and NMT's global network in Science and Venture Capital has been successfully involved in the emerging biotech scene. NMT's prime focus is to support start-up and early-stage biopharmaceutical and medical device companies to maturity in Switzerland and the neighbouring regions including the BioValley, as well as to import promising companies into the region.

With this background NMT has been and still is involved in - biopharmaceutical companies like Actelion, Antares, Arpida, Axovan, Polyphor, Qbiogene in the region of Basle/BioValley, Cytos in Zürich as well as in the medical device companies Cardiac Assist, Micrus, Precimedix in the French part of Switzerland and Thommen Medical near Basle.

Along with this support, NMT is always interested in discovering innovative university projects which lend themselves as nucleus to create a new company or as an addition to increase the critical mass of an already existing company.”

BioValley intends to make its activities known to ease exchanges between science and finance. A yearly trinational forum will be dedicated to these issues in the scope of INTERREG III.

A labelling programme for start-ups is also envisaged within INTERREG III, which should facilitate contacts between start-ups, investors and all categories of expertise (intellectual property, business plans, scientific assessments, etc) will be required to ensure the sound development of new businesses.

Likewise, management abilities are required to assist new entrepreneurs who, in the majority, are scientists. BioValley encourages experienced managers with a track record in the pharmaceutical industry or who have launched start-ups in other countries to assist BioValley's start-ups.

c) Collective promotion actions:

BioValley supports the development of businesses with collective promotion actions and takes an active part in setting-up partnerships.

Despite a slow- down in the economy, markets for biotechnologies continue to grow and BioValley intends to favour all scientific and economic conditions to ease the creation and establishment of new businesses and, therefore, generate new possibilities of employment in a trinational region which, above all, intends to have an international dimension.

Trinational actions relayed at national level:

One BioValley association has been established in each of the three regions of BioValley's territory. These associations relay information on trinational actions to their members at national level.

They also ensure that adequate economic tools are in place for the creation and establishment of new businesses. They work with local institutions in charge of the various aspects of economic development (local and national political institutions, agencies for economic development, chambers of commerce, incubators, agencies for the transfer of technologies, etc).

They represent the first step for many entrepreneurs directing them to the most appropriate structures in the early phases of developing their business projects.

National associations are also aware of their members' expectations and aim at answering their needs. They also relay information from their members up to trinational level.

Ulrich Birsner, President German BioValley Association, CEO GeneScan Europe AG

That's why we set up the BioValley Network:

  • The BioValley is a first class environment for success

  • BioValley is economically one of the most dynamic regions in Europe.The economic assets and growth rates of BioValley are well above average when compared to Europe and to the home countries of BioValley - Germany, France and Switzerland.

  • BioValley is an internationally recognized world leader for successful, dynamic future oriented Life Sciences activities.

  • The entire chain of activities in Life Sciences from basic molecular research to drug production is prominent in BioValley

Ernst Hungerbühler, President BioValley Platform Basle

“The vision of the BioValley Platform Basle Society is to establish a powerful innovative first class environment for life sciences. With the University of Basle, the University of Applied Sciences Basle, research Institutions and numerous enterprises ranging from small and mid-size all the way to the well known large companies, the potential for biotech start-ups is enormous. BioValley Platform Basle will provide expertise and its network for a successful start.”

To contact BioValley:

  • Central Association

  • c/o Alsace BioValley

  • Contact: Sylvie Schott

  • Parc d'Innovation- Pôle API - Bât. CATT

  • F- 67400 ILLKIRCH

  • Tel: + 33 3 90 40 30 00

  • Fax: + 33 3 90 40 30 01

  • admin@alsace-biovalley.com

  • www.biovalley.com

  • Alsace BioValley

  • Parc d'Innovation

  • Pôle API - Bâtiment CATT

  • 67400 Illkirch - France

  • Tel.: + 33 (0)3 90 40 30 00

  • Fax: + 33 (0)3 90 40 30 01

  • admin@alsace-biovalley.com

  • www.alsace-biovalley.com

  • BioValley Deutschland e.V.

  • Engesserstr. 4b

  • 79108 Freiburg in Breisgau

  • Germany

  • Tel.: + 49 761 5038 -120

  • Fax: + 49 761 5038 - 111

  • verein@biovalley.com

  • BioValley Platform Basel

  • c/o WTT-Stelle der Universität Basel,

  • Postfach

  • 4003 Basel

  • Switzerland

  • Tel.: + 41 61 267 3014

  • Fax: + 41 61 267 0997

  • HYPERLINKwtt@unibas.ch