News from the European umbrella organisation EuropaBio
Meeting of National Association Council (NAC) in Brussels
In mid-March, representatives of the national biotech associations organised under the umbrella of EuropaBio met and discussed the following: A survey was conducted among the national associations to enquire about the core issues and work priorities of these associations. Topics for the NAC’s further work were developed out of this. The SME Platform will be enhanced and will also contain information about financing research and development in Europe for SMEs. In addition, it was discussed whether uniform statistics were needed for the industry’s key European data, consisting of comparable country statistics. The French colleagues reported on the idea of organising an investor event together with Euronext at the BIO International Convention in the United States. In addition, EuropaBio working groups (Healthcare, Industrial and Agricultural Biotech) reported on their efforts since the last NAC meeting in November 2017.
Board Meeting
At the EuropaBio board meeting on March 21, the budgets for 2018 to 2020 were discussed. In addition, the Chairs of the National Associations Council, the Agricultural Biotech Council, the Healthcare Biotech Council, the Industrial Biotech Council and the SME Platform reported on the activities of the past six months, as well as on the planned focal points. In light of major staff changes at EuropaBio (managing director change in 2017, chairman change in 2018), the Board met for a strategy briefing the day before the board meeting to discuss and set a roadmap for the years to come. Peter Heinrich, Chairman of the Board of BIO Deutschland, is a member of the EuropaBio Board and Chairman of the SME Platform Working Group. In this capacity, he participated in the “Impact of Health Research for Society” workshop at the invitation of the EU Commission’s Scientific Health Panel.