Discussion to the Pilot industry Biotechnology at this year’s conference of the House of Pharma and Healthcare
On September 2 and 3, the 13th annual meeting of the “House of Pharma and Healthcare” took place on the Westend campus of Goethe University in Frankfurt. The general conditions and developments in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sector were examined in plenary sessions and parallel workshops. Claudia Englbrecht from BIO Deutschland moderated a panel discussion entitled “Biotechnology - New Leading Industry in Germany.” The panelists were Sylvia Wojczewski (CEO Biospring GmbH and board member of BIO Deutschland), Helga Rübsamen-Schaeff (AiCuris, co-head of the BIO Deutschland health policy working group), Jochen Maas (Vice President of the House of Pharma) and Rainer Waldschmidt (Managing Director of the Hessen Agentur). The discussion showed that the pharmaceutical and biotech industries are important drivers and growth engines of the industrial healthcare sector with great potential to push the industry location Germany into the forefront. However, it also became clear that there are locational disadvantages for German companies in international competition. For example, Contract Development and Manufacturing Organizations (CDMOs) such as Biospring are subject to higher corporate taxes than in comparable countries. The challenge of obtaining sufficient growth capital for the growth phase and excessive bureaucracy were also topics of discussion.