Biopolitics Conference

Results of the 2008 Biopolitics Conference: Urgent Improvements Needed to Ensure Innovative Power

• Hanover: With the publication today of conference papers from the 2008 Biopolitics Conference, the Hanover-based Deutsche Messe raises topical questions about how to safeguard the innovative capacities of the biotechnology sector. More than 150 representatives from industry, research and politics met on 7 October during this year’s BIOTECHNICA to discuss the most urgent issues in the biotech sector. During eight simultaneous workshops, ideas about how to improve conditions for innovation in Germany were drafted. These include the following:

• Removing the tax disadvantages affecting small and medium-sized companies in relation to large industry.

• The creation of a third-level basis that teaches commercial skills and leadership qualities alongside scientific degree courses The biotechnology sector needs particularly well trained young professionals as well as a welcoming professional environment and structure.

• The costs for innovative drugs that improve treatment should be reimbursed by the health insurance companies. Benefits for the patients, including cost-benefit analyses in the interest of the patient, should be weighted on the basis of societal values. In addition, the development of new drugs licensing and reimbursement criteria for new types of treatment is necessary.

• Moreover, a revision of the Law on Employee Inventions is required. It must be ensured that the rights to inventions made in a company belong to the firm while the rights of the inventor are also preserved.

• The conference participants also stated that the vital importance of technology transfer for the economy should finally be recognised and that this should be actively promoted as a tool in global competition for the consolidation of Germany as a business location. In addition, it should be ascertained that people who are educated in this country invest their skills in Germany and that the investment in education can thus make a contribution to the national net product.

• There was also a consensus that progress in the synthetic biology sector can only develop its potential on a long-term basis if it is combined with the necessary security measures to avoid abuse and mistakes in its application.

• The following associations and lobby groups from the biotech sector cooperated in the planning of the programme content of the Biopolitics Conference: the sector association, BIO Deutschland; the German BioRegions Council; the German Association of the Pharmaceutical Industry (BPI); the Association of German Biotech Companies in the Society for Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology (DECHEMA/VBU); the IASB (International Association of Synthetic Biology); the German Biotechnology Industry Association (DIB); and the lobby group, Biotechnology within the German Association of Research-Based Pharmaceutical Companies (VFA Bio)