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Not all innov­at­ive busi­nesses begin in a garage

05.03.2015
While some of today’s most suc­cess­ful busi­ness giants may have star­ted from luminar­ies exper­i­ment­ing in humble set­tings, over the years highly innov­at­ive small and medi­um sized enter­prises (SMEs) in Europe have developed nov­el ways of meet­ing our soci­et­al, tech­nic­al, and envir­on­ment­al prob­lems through the applic­a­tion of bio­tech­no­logy. Europa­Bio, the European Asso­ci­ation for Bioin­dus­tries, invites such SMEs to apply for the 6th edi­tion of its Most Innov­at­ive European Biotech SME Award – a unique annu­al ini­ti­at­ive recog­nising biotech innov­a­tion and its con­tri­bu­tion to soci­ety in Europe.

The win­ner is…

Europa­Bio wants to award 3 com­pan­ies and 3 ​‘run­ners-up’ in 3 cat­egor­ies: health­care, agri­cul­tur­al and indus­tri­al biotech applic­a­tions. The diversity of European bio­tech­no­logy war­rants noth­ing less.

Who decides?

Experts who are involved in biotech and see the big pic­ture, from the sci­ence to the fund­ing real­it­ies to the polit­ic­al frame­work and who truly believe and under­stand the poten­tial of innov­a­tion and SMEs for Europe’s future. They are: 
  • Tom Saylor, CEO of Are­cor and Chair of the Europa­Bio SME Platform.
  • Kay Swin­burne, Welsh Mem­ber of the European Par­lia­ment with a PhD in Med­ic­al Research, King’s Col­lege Lon­don, and MBA and a career in inter­na­tion­al health­care and finance.
  • Phil­ippe De Back­er, Bel­gian Mem­ber of the European Par­lia­ment with a PhD in Bio­tech­no­logy, Ghent Uni­ver­sity and a career in invest­ment in biotech.
  • Jos B. Peeters, Man­aging Part­ner at Capri­corn Ven­ture Part­ners with a PhD in Sol­id State Phys­ics from the Uni­ver­sity of Leuven and a career at Bell Tele­phone Man­u­fac­tur­ing Cy, PA Tech­no­logy and BeneVent Man­age­ment before start­ing Capri­corn Ven­ture Part­ners in 1993.
  • Nath­alie Moll, Sec­ret­ary Gen­er­al of Europa­Bio with a B.Sc. in Bio­tech­no­logy & Bio­chem­istry from St Andrews Uni­ver­sity and 20 years work­ing exper­i­ence with the biotech industry and institutions.
Their priv­ilege will be to ana­lyse each applic­a­tion care­fully, dis­cov­er incred­ible new sci­ence, dis­cuss, debate and select two nom­in­ees and a win­ner for each of the three cat­egor­ies.

What is at stake for the applicants?

A €10,000 cheque plus two years free mem­ber­ship of Europa­Bio for each win­ner. Extend­ing the lat­ter to the run­ners-up is only fair.

What else? A fancy awards dinner?

No, expos­ure. Mainly to EU media and top-level policy makers since the award cere­mony will take place dur­ing the Europa­Bio Bene­fits Event: Solu­tions for Europe’s Growth & Sus­tain­ab­il­ity on 23 June 2015 at the European Par­lia­ment. This is a high-level event show­cas­ing the bene­fits of biotech in Europe. It will include key­notes from the European Com­mis­sion­ers for Health and Food Safety, Vytenis Andri­ukait­is and from the Com­mis­sion­er for Research, Sci­ence and Innov­a­tion, Car­los Moedas, as well as elev­at­or pitches from com­pany CEOs and testi­mo­ni­als from people who have benefited from bio­tech­no­logy.

Dead­line to become part of the story

SMEs inter­ested to enter the com­pet­i­tion are invited to apply by 6 April 2015. They can do so via the online applic­a­tion form, or by send­ing the off­line Word-based form (see right column) via email to Cos­min Popa (c.popa(at)europabio.org).

NOTE TO EDITORS

Quote from Tom Saylor, Chair­man of the Europa­Bio SME Plat­form:
​“Rais­ing the pro­file for innov­at­ive biotech com­pan­ies in Europe both col­lect­ively and indi­vidu­ally offers the oppor­tun­ity to demon­strate the enorm­ous poten­tial of our entre­pren­eurs in this sec­tor. Final­ists not only enjoy the bene­fits of Europa­Bio mem­ber­ship includ­ing the most extens­ive net­work of com­pan­ies in the biotech sec­tor, but also the chance to show­case their cap­ab­il­it­ies to poten­tial part­ners, investors and col­lab­or­at­ors. Past final­ists have shown that this award can provide a plat­form for access to resources and expos­ure that can con­trib­ute to ongo­ing suc­cess in the future.” Why an award for biotech SMEs?
Accord­ing to the European Com­mis­sion, ​“small and medi­um-sized enter­prises (SMEs) are the back­bone of Europe’s eco­nomy. They rep­res­ent 90% of all busi­nesses in the EU. In the past five years, they have cre­ated around 85% of new jobs and provided two-thirds of the total private sec­tor employ­ment in the EU.” In oth­er words, SME mat­ter and the lead­ers in innov­a­tion should be recog­nized and rewar­ded. Biotech embod­ies the way in which sci­ence and sci­entif­ic break­throughs can be applied to cur­rent prob­lems. From new ther­apies that can address unmet med­ic­al needs and fight epi­dem­ics and rare dis­eases, to indus­tri­al pro­cesses that use renew­able feed stocks instead of crude oil, to drought-res­ist­ant crops that allow farm­ers around the world to feed more people under ever-harsh­er cli­mat­ic con­di­tions, bio­tech­no­logy pays eco­nom­ic, social and envir­on­ment­al dividends. About Europa­Bio and its SME Plat­form
Europa­Bio is the European Asso­ci­ation of BioIn­dus­tries. Our mem­bers are involved in research, devel­op­ment, test­ing, man­u­fac­tur­ing and com­mer­cial­isa­tion of biotech products and pro­cesses in human and anim­al health­care, dia­gnostics, bioin­form­at­ics, chem­ic­als, crop pro­tec­tion, agri­cul­ture, food and envir­on­ment­al products and ser­vices. Europa­Bio also counts a num­ber of Nation­al Biotech Asso­ci­ations in its mem­ber­ship who in turn rep­res­ent more than 1800 biotech SMEs. EuropaBio’s SME Plat­form focuses its activ­it­ies on high­light­ing chal­lenges and fin­an­cial con­straints that biotech SMEs face, and devel­op­ing policy recom­mend­a­tions to optim­ise EU and mem­ber state fund­ing instru­ments for biotech SMEs. The SME Plat­form brings togeth­er CEOs of SMEs, Nation­al Biotech Asso­ci­ations, Ven­ture Cap­it­al­ists and private banks, European fin­an­cial insti­tu­tions, rep­res­ent­at­ives from the EC, and oth­er inter­ested stake­hold­ers. Source: EuropaBio
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