International development

Helping companies to grow internationally

Thanks to the quality of its research, its infrastructure and its pool of companies, French biotech is now ranked 3rd in Europe. Genopole® has strongly participated in this resurgence by developing a range of initiatives aimed at exporting its companies’ skills and increasing their international competitiveness.

Genopole® International’s activity is based on 4 major themes:

A business objective:

 Helping start-ups to develop their business internationally.

Promoting the campus:

 Showcasing Genopole® members and stakeholders to the international biopharmaceutical industry, research organizations, investors and bio-incubators across the world.

 Consolidating existing relationships and cooperations.

A specific initiative within Europe:

 Providing biotech SMEs with high-quality project support and facilitating access to European funding.

 Promoting new business incubation tools, some of which be operated on an inter-company and inter-cluster basis.

 Becoming a stakeholder in the European Research Area (ERA)

From strategic advice to the definition of an action plan, SMEs are provided with extensive support in defining a European collaborative project that matches the company’s requirements.

This innovative initiative has established a new form of public-private collaboration as part of a global business development approach.

Developing and leveraging skills:

All the above activities are made possible by the ideas and talent found within Genopole® and its network.

 Welcoming elite scientists and businesspeople from around the world by including programs for researchers and business incubator managers from the southern hemisphere.

 Promoting the return of elite French expat scientists

Genopole® is becoming a key player in the European research Area.
 Coordinating or participating in European projects: Natibs, BioLink and Bio-CT, a multicluster project which seeks to pool management tools and expertise for technical facilities, the “reverse brain drain” and the maturation of innovative life science start-ups.

 Encouraging French-trained expat researchers or entrepreneurs to return to France.

Genopole® offers SMEs with the expertise required to build projets that meet the European Commission’s eligibility criteria:

• strategic advice & scientific analysis
  
• contract negotiation
  
• project management

Multilateral European collaborations European projects in which Genopole® participated:

Bio-Link (FP5 - 2002), international consortium of bio-incubators. The consortium included Oxford Biotechnet (UK), BioM (Germany), Consorzio 21 (Italy), Hadasit (Israel) and two university groups (Cardiff and Jerusalem) and sought to identify, study and compare the tools developed by the various incubators and draw up a European guide to good incubation practice.

Natibs (FP6 2002-2006), new Approaches and Tools for Incubated Biotech companies SMEs, with incubators in Barcelona (Spain), Berlin (Germany), Ramat Gan (Israel), Stockholm (Sweden) and Tallin (Estonia). This program was coordinated by the Essonne CCI and the Inno-TSD consultancy company from Sophia-Antipolis and sought to define ways of facilitating the participation of biotech companies in major European programs.

CEBR (2006), the Council of European Bioregions. This European network of life science support organizations is the first of its kind and brings together the leading European bio-clusters, including Genopole®. The goal is to structure and stimulate the sector’s activity. A major, pan-European biocluster seminar is planned.

Genopole®’s “Knowledge Regions” tender was approved in 2008. This initiative is part of the specific “Capacites” FP7 program and seeks to reinforce the European regions’ level of investment in R&D by inciting them to perform research activities on one hand and improve the participation of local stakeholders in European research projects on the other. The idea is thus to bring together the various regional research players, prompt them to build a joint approach and to share technical and methodological tools.

BIO-CT (FP7), Common Tools in biotechnology. This project includes five European bioclusters, the CEBR (Council of European BioRegions) and a European strategic consultancy company. The joint action plan that will be generated by this collaboration notably includes the following tools: (i) a joint policy on encouraging expat researchers to return to Europe (the “reverse brain drain”) and improve inter-sector and regional mobility; (ii) a network of project maturation systems and (iii) operating procedures which facilitate access to technology platforms.

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