Pharmaceutical Executive Europe - August 2008 - (Page 13)

Pharmaceutical Executive Europe August 2008 Profile 13 Renaissance Man Eric Poincelet is committed to his vision of mobilising European biotech into an industry that can rival the US. Pharm Exec Europe caught up with him to find out how he is engineering the ever-strengthening EuroBio event to help facilitate this. s the exhibition floor of this year’s BIO 2008 International Convention in San Diego was being cleared, and as its 20000-plus attendees were making their way back to their homes and offices across the globe, Eric Poincelet, commissioner general of EuroBio, was immersing himself, some 9000 kilometres away, in the preparations for what he hopes will one day be a true rival to this mammoth US event. Poincelet’s plans for EuroBio are as ambitious and far-reaching as those that propelled US BIO to its current of world domination. There is a long way to go, of course, not least because the European industry has a lot of catching up to do before it can claim any kind of parity with the US. However, Poincelet is quick to point out that European biotech is simply 10 years after the US, and not 10 years behind. EuroBio began life back in 1997 when the French government initiated a European biotechnology networking event known as European Biotech Crossroads. This was, according to Poincelet, a “very French” type of event. Industry was not much involved; rather, it aimed to assist the new generation of researchers “to find a job and discuss the biotech sector.” At this point Poincelet was appointed by Raymond Barre, the former prime minister of France (1976–81) to help launch what became BioVision, the World Life Sciences Forum. Although industry was involved with this, Poincelet was nonetheless frustrated as it was still very much ‘society-oriented.’ “I could see the US Bio event developing at that time,” he says, “and I realised that we needed a meeting for the life sciences industry here in Europe, but nobody was doing it. We had partnering events, financial seminars, conferences here and there, but nothing like the US BIO convention.” When Poincelet left BioVision he was approached by the French Ministry of Research to broaden the scope of the European Biotech Crossroads. He started in 2005 by renaming it EuroBio. “I repositioned it at the interface of industry and research, with industry first; and I basically tried to copy the US event, using everything that I thought worked and discarding what I thought didn’t work.” A Poincelet and his team implemented BIO’s four-pillar structure — the conference, the partnering event, a careers fair and, of course, the exhibition. By 2006, EuroBio was being attended by over 4000 people; this year’s event, in Paris on 7–9 October, is expected to attract over 5000. But for all its ‘internationalisation,’ there is a provocative engagement this year with some of the more controversial issues surrounding biotech in Europe, an approach that smacks, admirably, of a particularly French mentality. “We will be asking questions such as why have we spent so much money, for instance, on the common agricultural policy (CGA) during the past so-many years and why so little on the development of research and innovation,” says Poincelet. “This a strong statement, but it shouldn’t be seen as a provocation. It should be seen as a way of thinking about the future. Every European citizen is spending around €100 per year on growing sugar beet or whatever’s in the framework of the CGA, and only €14 on research and innovation, which is what should be shaping the 21st Century. We’re not saying that we should reduce the money spent on the Common Agricultural Policy — we’re suggesting that maybe there should be a Common Research Policy!” “We’re not saying that we should reduce the money spent on the Common Agricultural Policy — we’re suggesting that maybe there should be a Common Research Policy!” Nationalism and internationalism Despite the growing success of his event, Poincelet is acutely aware of the ongoing disparity between US and European biotech. Indeed, the disparity within Europe — between the UK and the rest of the continent — is a also significant one: the UK industry constitutes 40% of the European biotech industry. It comes as no surprise, then, that the presentations at this year’s EurBio are in English, despite the show being tagged ‘the life sciences event of the European http://www.eurobio2008.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pharmaceutical Executive Europe - August 2008

Pharmaceutical Executive Europe - August 2008
Contents
From the Editor
News and Analysis
Calendar
The Calm Before the Storm
Steering Pharma in Russia
Built on Sand
Renaissance Man
IT Meets IMI
Send for the Software Specialists
Know Your eMarket
Last Words

Pharmaceutical Executive Europe - August 2008