European Biotechnology needs Political Decisions

It is high time that Science was defended, that it is made clear, that the Government will not allow stray protests against Science to prevent us from taking on the challenge and making the best of our opportunities." Every siotechnologist/scientist would surely like to hear this statement of Tony Blair, England's Prime Minister, from his own Head of Government. Particularly if these strong words were also followed by political decisions.
But that is far off the mark. In the united economic area of Europe, one still hasn't agreed on a common direction. According to the view of many experts, the USA is leading the rest of the world in all economic indicators by a factor of at least two. For example, in the USA there are presently 866 patent applications for biotechnological related drugs pending. In Europe's leading economic nations, Great Britain, Germany and France, there are in sum less than half of these (414). These are the figures, however, that are of decisive importance for the success of biotechnical and pharmaceutical companies within the coming years.

But it is not sufficient to orientate oneself only towards the success of US researchers. Asia will also strengthen its involvement in the key technologies, biotechnology and genetic engineering. In the next four years, the economic metropolis Singapore alone will invest around 4 billion US$ in the promotion of biotechnological projects. China is also on the alert. Many experts expect this most highly populated country on Earth to become distinctly more strongly engaged in the area of High-Tech in the future.

The AnalyticaChina, which was held for the first time this year, in Shanghai in September, indicates the interest of the Chinese in the products and procedures required. The DDT 2002 which was held in Boston (see the detailed report from there on page 20) clearly showed that the suppliers of technology have done their homework to even further shorten the development time in research. The tools for an economically successful usage of biotechnology are therefore available, the success in implementing them will depend ever more strongly on the framework conditions in the individual countries.In difficult economic times, there is a need for supportive Government programmes which enable start-ups to overcome their initial difficulties.

The Biotechnica Business Forum, running from November 27th to 28th in Hannover/Germany, will hopefully get political discussions going that will help to bring European biotechnology as a whole further to the front (one group will work on framework conditions in Europe). And naturally, the NewDrugs journal will do its part, together with the EAPB, to drive the development of European pharma-ceutical biotechnology further onwards.

Marc Platthaus