New and Improved - The
EuropaBio Website
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Visit
EuropaBio’s new and improved healthcare portal
EuropaBio’s healthcare portal on our website has a new and
improved look. Visit the site at
http://www.europabio.org/Healthcare/
Also be sure to send us your questions to the
brand new
Ask the Healthcare Council website.
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EuropaBio video library online
We now have a video library on our website
http://www.europabio.org/ne_video.htm.
It is also accessible from the Media Room drop-down menu
& Media room index. And features
EuropaBio’s DVD “The Invisible Revolution”
in Spanish thanks
to
Fundacion ANTAMA,. It’s available
here on EuropaBio’s website.
EuropaBio and EuropaBio Members’ sessions at the DIA 3-5
March
SMEs at the
20th
Annual DIA EuroMeeting
IF THE FUTURE OF TREATMENT IS IN THE HANDS OF SMEs, HOW CAN
WE UNLOCK THEIR POTENTIAL?
EuropaBio’s Secretary General, Johan Vanhemelrijck
will be speaking on the topic “What Needs Joining Up in
Europe to Help SMEs Deliver Their Promises to Patients?”.
For more information, click
here.
ADVANCED THERAPIES IN THE EU: TODAY AND TOMORROW
The EU’s Advanced Therapies Regulation text is
in place, but this is just the first step in creating a
workable framework for biotech’s newest deliveries.Regulators and companies are
developing the way forward together: this session will
highlight where we are and what comes next. For more
information, click
here.
BIOSIMILARS – HERE AT LAST, BUT DELIVERING IN FULL?
The
legislative framework for approving Biosimilars has borne
fruit – the EU leads the world in this field for approving
these products and many more are in the system. Now that we
can speak from practical experience, is the system right for
these new products and are healthcare systems ready for
them? For more information, click
here.
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A
dramatic tax cut will make Belgium one of the most tax
friendly countries in the world to develop and license
intellectual property
The Belgian government seeks to encourage Belgian companies
and Belgian branches of foreign companies to invest in
technological information by stimulating R&D with respect to
the development of patents reports Finance@SBJ. To
read the article, please click
here.
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Small
Business Act “Think small first”: A new channel for the SME
voice and EuropaBio’s sector interests
The EU Commission intends
to launch a Small Business Act (SBA) (June 2008) which they
hope will get policy makers at National and European level
to “think small first” when regulating, providing market
access, facilitating access to finance, etc. And anything
that is good for small companies is good for big business
said BusinessEurope’s SME Committee Vice-Chair - Hugh Morgan
Williams at a Commission Hearing held to discuss the Small
Business Act. The consultation is launched and will run
till end March and companies are invited to submit comments
on how to make Europe more business friendly. This
exercise is important for EuropaBio as ‘Market Access
issues’ are a priority for EuropaBio members and are
identified in the consultation as a major barrier that
should be addressed by the SBA. It was noted at the
hearing that, if over 95% of businesses in Europe are SMEs,
“then for whom are we legislating?” asked Arnaldo Abruzzini,
Head of Eurochambres. He said if SMEs are in the majority,
they should be our economic focus and not treated as an
exception and that the SBA should be “addressed to Member
States rather than SMEs” legally binding them to implement
the legislation they agreed to and put in place. For more
information and to participate in the consultation, please
click
here.
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Economist
reports: Europe may not like it, but genetic modification is
transforming agriculture
For a decade Europe has rebuffed efforts by biotechnology
firms such as America's Monsanto to promote genetically
modified crops. Despite scientific assurances that
genetically modified organisms (GMOs)
are safe for human consumption, and a ruling by the World
Trade Organisation against national import bans in the
European Union, many Europeans have yet to touch or taste
them. But that may soon change, according to Iain Ferguson,
boss of Tate & Lyle, a British food giant. “We sit at a
moment of history when GM
technology...is a fact of life,” he said this week. To view
the article please click
here.
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EuropaBio
supports common security market for Bio-Preparedness
EuropaBio, the European Association for Bio-Industries,
welcomes the conclusions from the EU FP6 Project STACCATO
(Stakeholders Platform for Supply Chain Mapping Market
Conditions Analysis & Technologies Opportunities) workshop
on Bio-Preparedness. About 100 experts in the field of
bio-safety and bio-security met with the European Commission
DG Health and Consumer Protection and DG Justice, Freedom
and Security in Brussels on 13 February 2008 to discuss the
next steps on Bio-Preparedness and possible future
public/private partnerships with the biotech industry. To
read the related EuropaBio press release, please click
here.
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2007
ISAAA GM crop annual report shows another double figure %
growth
After a
dozen years of commercialization, biotech crops are still
gaining ground with another year of double-digit growth and
new countries joining the list of supporters, according to a
report released today by the International Service for the
Acquisition of Agri-biotech Applications (ISAAA). In 2007,
biotech crop area grew 12 percent or 12.3 million hectares
to reach 114.3 million hectares, the second highest area
increase in the past five years. To view the ISAAA
(International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-biotech
Applications)
press releases and related materials, please
click
here.
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Who
will lead the Lead Markets?
Lead Markets Initiative event organized by
Science|Business
on 12 March in Brussels
Who will lead the Lead Markets? An open discussion on the
development of innovative markets in Europe will be held on
March 12 10.30 - 13.30 at the EFTA Secretariat in Brussels.
More
information about the event is available by clicking
here.
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Rare Disease Day - 29 February
Patient
groups are organising a Europe-wide event on Friday February
29 in order to raise awareness of rare diseases as a health
priority for Europe. Specific events will be held in 18
Member States. Details of the day can be found at
www.rarediseaseday.org.
Read EuropaBio's press release
here.
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Commissioner Fischer Boel calls for deeper debate and
assessment of the facts in relation to GMOs
Europe's farm chief said on Monday she welcomed France's
willingness to discuss modifications to the bloc's Common
Agriculture Policy (CAP) but any hint of protectionism would
be unacceptable. Speaking on the sidelines of Europe's
biggest annual farm show under way in Paris, EU Agriculture
Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said she believed that the
European Commission shared some ideas on agricultural reform
with France. Turning to the subject of genetically modified
(GMO) products used in animal feed, Fischer Boel called for
deeper debate and an assessment of the facts. Describing
French views towards GMOs as "special", she stressed that 90
percent of all soybeans imported into Europe today were
genetically modified and that the figure for maize imports
stood at 50 percent. "I think we cheat the consumers
because when we import beef from South America, (it) will be
fed by GMs which are not even approved in Europe so we
export our own production and that is crazy from my point of
view," she said. "Therefore I think we should have a
discussion in the Council to see what can be done to avoid a
situation where we have a shortage of imports of feed stuff
-- soybeans -- which means at the end of the day that
production will take place somewhere else," she said. To
view the article, please click
here.
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Report on public hearing on Animal Health Strategy and
Vaccine Technologies published
A European Parliament hearing on 13 February hosted by Mrs.
Avril Doyle, Member of the European Parliament, debated the
Community Animal Health Strategy and EU scientific
innovation. The Report has been published and is available
by clicking
here.
A related article “Stakeholders
call for more research into animal vaccines”
was published on CORDIS.
It’s available by clicking
here.
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EVENTS MARCH - JUNE 2008
For a full list of events, click
here
MARCH
3-5 March;
DIA (Drug Information Association) 20th Annual Euromeeting;
Barcelona; Click
here
for more information.
6-8
March; European Course for Life Sciences Executives (ECLE);
Basel;
ECLE is an interactive Course for Life Sciences managers who
prepare for leadership positions and, therefore, seek an
intensive preparation and repetition for how to effectively run
a successful enterprise or department. For more information,
please visit:
www.ecpm.ch/ecle
12-14
March; BioSquare 2008; Basel
EuropaBio is pleased to support BioSquare 2008. The
three-day event features a full program including panels and
workshops led by corporate executives and biotech experts.
BioSquare also features a company presentation track including
not only the up and coming biotech companies but also the
largest Life Sciences companies presenting their in/out
licensing strategies. For more information, please visit:
http://www.biosquare.com/
12-14
March; World Biofuels Markets; Brussels;
http://www.worldbiofuelsmarkets.com/
13-14 March; Biofuel: A new market niche;
Riga Latvia;
For more information, click
here.
18-19
March; Innovact; The European Forum; Reims; For more
information, click
here.
26-27 March;
Bioscience
for Business KTN Annual Conference,
High Value Products from Nature Unifying Bioproduction;
Durham; For more information, click
here.
APRIL
7-9 April 2008;
Bio-Europe Spring; Madrid (Spain) For more information,
http://www.bioeuropespring.com
16-17 April;
BioMedica 2008;
Maastricht, The Netherlands. For more information, click
http://www.biomedica2008.com/.
17-19 April;
European Course for Life Sciences Executives (ECLE);
Basel, Switzerland. For more information, click
here.
27-30
April; World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology &
Bioprocessing; Chicago;
http://www.bio.org/worldcongress2008/
MAY
5-6
May; BioFusion 2008; Atlanta;
www.biofusionpartnering.com
JUNE
1-4 June;
Renewable Resources & Biorefineries; Rotterdam;
http://www.biofuelsinternationalexpo.com/conf_prog.html
4-5 June;
Biofuels International Expo & Conference; Rotterdam
http://www.biofuelsinternationalexpo.com/conf_prog.html
17-20 June: BIO 2008; San Diego, California
For more information, visit:
http://www.bio2008.org/
22-26 June: 4th EPSO Conference: ‘Plants for Life’,
Toulon, France
For more information, visit:
www.epsoweb.org/catalog/conf2008.htm
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