EuroBiO 2007 in Lille, France - Sept 26^th-28^th

LILLE, France--(BUSINESS WIRE)--EuroBiO 2007 will be back in Lille from September 26^th to 28^th and is again positioning itself as the leading platform for dialogue and networking between stakeholders in biotech, bioscience and the bioindustry.

This year, EuroBiO will make significant efforts to create synergy between major bioscience players and smaller companies & organisations. The event's partnerships with some of the pharma industry's biggest names (Bayer-Schering, Schering-Plough, GSK Biologicals, Johnson & Johnson, Sanofi-Aventis) and other major industrial biotech users (Roquette, Unilever, etc.) testifies to the need to bring together bioscience and bioindustry stakeholders as part of a European meeting which, alongside SMEs and multinationals, also features academic players.

According to Philippe Archinard, CEO of Transgene and a member of the EuroBiO Strategic Committee: "EuroBiO is one of the few events to apply such a cross-sector focus to issues in biotech. An important point is EuroBiO's emphasis on aspects related to technology transfer. However, we don't just want to talk about licensing, there's more to it than that. There are all the other approaches to research exploitation and company incubation that are going on in public and private-sector labs. More generally, we have to identify, federate and professionalize stakeholders throughout the network. Transforming an invention into an innovative product requires a coherent system where excellence and professional are essential throughout".

This strong commitment by industry shows that EuroBiO has moved up a gear and has won legitimacy for an organisational approach based on the 4 cornerstones which now characterize the event: seminar programmes, a trade exhibition, the EuroBiOpartnering business convention and the EuroBiO Career Fair.

35 companies and 500 job candidates at the EuroBiO Career Fair

This latter module is particularly attractive for companies like Bayer-Schering or GSK Biologicals, who are looking for tomorrow's talents. According to Lopa Patel (Senior Manager & Head of Talent Acquisition, GSK Biologicals): "We want to highlight the employment and career opportunities at GSK Biologicals worldwide. On average, we recruit about 800 new staff every year. 2007 will probably be in that vein, with the creation of several hundred new jobs. We’re looking for a range of very diverse profiles: scientists of course, but also clinicians, epidemiologists and more technical professions on the production, engineering and maintenance levels, along with civil, industrial & biological engineers and chemistry & biochemistry graduates".

Cross-sector testimonies from international speakers

Likewise, the quality of the seminar programme just goes on rising, more with contributions from world-leading experts in four thematic tracks:

• The biotech economy and business development
• Red biotech
• White & green biotech
• Regulatory affairs/IP/technology transfer

Confirmed expert speakers include:

Alan Harris - FERRING - Switzerland

Aled Edwards - Structural Genomics - Canada

Alexander Vos - Paion - Germany

Andrea Cesura - Evotec NeuroSciences GmbH - Germany

Arjen van Tunen - Keygene – The Netherlands

Bart Staels - Genfit / University Lille II - France

Ben Van Ommen - TNO Quality of Life – Director of NuGo – the European Nutrigenomics Association – The Netherlands

Don Rule - Microsoft (Bio-IT Alliance) - USA

Elizabeth Edwards - University of Toronto – Professor - Canada

Fabrizio Conicella - Bioindustry Park Cavanese - Italy

Germano Giuliani - Giuliani S.p.A. - Italy

Gian Carlo Naccari - GastroIntestinal Sector – Cosmo Pharmaceuticals S.p.A. - Italy

Gilles Avenard - BioAlliance Pharma - France

Heli Skottman - REGEA Institute for Regenerative Medicine - Finland

Idan Tamir - RAD BioMed Incubator - Israel

Jean-François Mouney - Genfit - France

Johan Vanhemelrijck - EuropaBio - Belgium

John Hogdson - Critical I - UK

José Pico - Amgen - France

Keiichi Ota - Ota & Associates, Patents & trademarks - Japan

Kenneth Evans - Ontario Cancer Biomarker Network - Canada

Kurt Zaltoukal - University of Graz - Austria

Laura van’t veer - Agendia - Netherlands Cancer Institute – The Netherlands

Liselotte Larsson - Novozymes - Sweden

Louise Brown - Unilever Corporate - UK

Marc Zabeau - Flanders Institute for Biotechnology / European Plant Science Organisation - Belgium

Mats Berggren - Sweden Bio - Sweden

Michel Goldman - BIOWin - Belgium

Nettie Buitelaar - Leiden BioScience Park – Managing Director – The Netherlands

Nigel Courtenay Luck - Antisoma - UK

Peter Matthewmann - Performance Plants Inc - Canada

Peter Weber - DSM Human Nutrition & Health - Switzerland

Philippe Archinard - Transgene - Lyon Biopole - France

Pierre Desreumaux - INSERM - France

Rahul Singhvi - Novavax, Inc. - USA

Rick Finnegan - GTC Biotherapeutics - USA

Rudi Balling - Helmholtz-Centre for Infection Research - Germany

Ruth Keir - Pfizer - UK

Sami Chtourou - LFB - France

Staffan Lindstrand - HealthCap - Sweden

Stéphane Hogan - Research European Commission - Ireland

Sunggie Lee - Dailbiotech corp. - South Korea

Tamara Maes - Oryzon Genomics - Spain

Vincent G. Brichart - GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals - Belgium

Yann Bayeux - Pierre Fabre - France

Encouraging collaborative projects and knowledge transfer

EuroBiO will also host an exhibition, with more than 400 companies & organizations and dozens of clusters from across the world representing the biotech sector's full diversity. This complementarity also makes sense in the pre-arranged, one-to-one meetings that make up EuroBiOpartnering, the business and tech transfer convention. Along with the multinationals, venture capital funds and mature biotech companies, the objective is to generate optimized meetings with start-ups and academic tech transfer players, who are much in demand by established industrial and financial players seeking to diversify their contacts.

In 2007, EuroBiO will bring together 180 international speakers, 400 exhibitors, 500 business convention participants (including 100 representatives of academia) and 500 job candidates (whether new graduates or experienced professionals). In all, over 5000 people are set to attend the event at the Lille Grand Palais conference centre on September 26^th-28^th!