Who are Europe’s 5 most innov­at­ive biotech SMEs?

Europa­Bio has announced the top five can­did­ates that will com­pete for the Most Innov­at­ive EU Biotech SME Award 2012. Now in its 3^rd year, this year’s award has seen the highest num­ber of entries to date with 37 applic­ants from across 17 Mem­ber States, oper­at­ing in all three sec­tors of bio­tech­no­logy from health­care to indus­tri­al to agri­cul­ture. The top five can­did­ates include: Glob­al Bioen­er­gies (France) [Mit­glied im Net­zwerk der BioM WB] which is devel­op­ing more effi­cient ways to con­vert renew­able resources such as agri­cul­tur­al waste, sug­ar and starch into chem­ic­al key build­ing blocks and drop-in fuels, drastic­ally decreas­ing C02 emis­sions as well as gen­er­at­ing new jobs in rur­al areas; Green Bio­lo­gics Ltd (UK), an innov­at­ive indus­tri­al bio­tech­no­logy com­pany that pro­duces envir­on­ment­ally sus­tain­able bio­chem­ic­als and bio­fuels with a sig­ni­fic­ant reduc­tion in green­house gas emmis­sions using advances in bio­tech­no­logy in the fer­ment­a­tion pro­cess; Pro­meth­era BioS­ciences (Bel­gi­um) is using innov­at­ive tech­no­lo­gies to devel­op cell ther­apy products that treat very severe genet­ic liv­er dis­eases mainly affect­ing chil­dren as well as acquired liv­er dis­eases; ProtAffin AG (Aus­tria) is devel­op­ing more effect­ive ther­apies for key glob­al dis­eases with major unmet need such as Chron­ic Obstruct­ive Pul­mon­ary Dis­order (COPD affects an estim­ated 65 mil­lion people world­wide and is the 4^th lead­ing cause of death in the West);to-BBB (The Neth­er­lands), who have dis­covered a new tech­no­logy to enhance drug deliv­ery across the blood-brain bar­ri­er to treat med­ic­al con­di­tions such as brain can­cer, Alzheimer’s dis­ease and mul­tiple scler­osis. The over-all win­ner of the award, chosen by an expert judging pan­eli, will receive a prize fund of €10,000 as well as two year’s free mem­ber­ship of Europa­Bio. The award will be presen­ted by Com­mis­sion Vice Pres­id­ent Ant­o­nio Tajani, Com­mis­sion­er for Industry & Entre­pren­eur­ship, at a high-level European Par­lia­ment event — hos­ted by MEP Kay Swin­burne — which is once again expec­ted to attract a large audi­ence of Biotech CEOs, Ven­ture Cap­it­al­ists, Policy Makers as well as oth­er stake­hold­ers. The event will also fea­ture a highly anti­cip­ated key­note address by G. Steven Burrill, Founder and CEO of Burrill & Com­pany. Com­ment­ing on this year’s award, Tom Saylor, Chair­man of the Europa­Bio SME Plat­form stated: ​“The judging pan­el faced an extremely dif­fi­cult task in select­ing the final­ists for this year’s award. Now in it’s 3^rd year, the SME award is con­tin­ously expand­ing, not only in the num­ber of applic­ants from vari­ous Mem­ber States but also in the very high qual­ity of the applic­a­tions. We have also wit­nessed the SME Award play­ing a cru­cial role in rais­ing the interest of a wider audi­ence of policy and oth­er stake­hold­ers eager to address the issues faced by our most innov­at­ive SMEs in Europe. As the CEO of Are­cor, a bio­tech­no­logy SME, I have a first-hand under­stand­ing of the obstacles that SMEs face, par­tic­u­larly the areas of access to fin­ance and intel­lecu­al prop­erty. Europe has done much to cre­ate a sound policy and reg­u­lat­ory frame­work with­in which SMEs can oper­ate, but more needs to be done to ensure that these com­pan­ies and their ground­break­ing innov­a­tions stay in Europe. These SMEs are vital not only to job cre­ation and our eco­nom­ic sta­bil­ity but also in pro­du­cing innov­at­ive solu­tions and products that con­trib­ute to health­i­er, green­er and more sus­tain­able life­styles.” Nath­alie Moll, Sec­ret­ary Gen­er­al of Europa­Bio con­grat­u­lated this year’s entrants by stat­ing: ​“We are delighted and hon­oured to have received such a high num­ber of applic­a­tions for this year’s Europa­Bio Most Innov­at­ive Biotech SME Award and the stand­ards of innov­a­tion and excel­lence are truly out­stand­ing. A not­able con­cern once again how­ever is the extremely low num­ber of Agri­cul­tur­al Biotech applic­ants for the SME Award. Unfor­tu­nately this serves to high­light the lack of con­crete incent­ives in place in Europe for the Ag-biotech sec­tor. In South Amer­ica, the US, Asia and parts of Africa this industry is soar­ing and we should be very care­ful in Europe not to miss out on a sec­tor that addresses some of mankind’s most press­ing needs as well as con­trib­ut­ing to job cre­ation and eco­nom­ic sta­bil­ity”. About Europa­Bio: Europa­Bio is the European Asso­ci­ation for Bioin­dus­tries, bring­ing togeth­er bios­cience com­pan­ies from all fields of research and devel­op­ment, test­ing, man­u­fac­tur­ing and dis­tri­bu­tion of bio­tech­no­logy products. It has 56 cor­por­ate mem­bers, 14 asso­ci­ate mem­bers and Bio Regions and 19 Nation­al Bio­tech­no­logy Asso­ci­ations — rep­res­ent­ing some 1800 small and medi­um sized enter­prises across Europe. For fur­ther inform­a­tion, please con­tact: Ros­alind Tra­vers­Man­ager, Com­mu­nic­a­tions, Nation­al Asso­ci­ations & SME Plat­form Europa­Bio Phone: +32 (0) 2 739 1173 GSM: +32 (0) 478 680 301 Email: r.​travers@​europaBio.​org The Europa­Bio Most Innov­at­ive SME Award 2012 judging pan­el con­sisted of: G.Steven Burrill, Founder and CEO of Burrill & Co; Tom Saylor, CEO Of Are­cor & Chair of the Europa­Bio SME Plat­form; Phil­ippe De Back­er, MEP and Nath­alie Moll, Sec­ret­ary Gen­er­al Europa­Bio Quelle: EuropaBio