World Cancer Day Press Event Held in Berlin in Early February

In the run-up to World Cancer Day at the beginning of last month, a press event called “German Science Day – Fight Cancer!” was held in Berlin on 2 February. The one-day conference was open to journalists from both the specialist and non-specialist media. Presentations by a large number of German biotech companies provided insight into new therapeutic approaches and showed the current level of development of promising innovative drug candidates. The event focused on expected clinical results in 2012.

Peter Heinrich, Chairman of the Board of BIO Deutschland, presented data on the German biotechnology sector’s activities in the field of oncology at the beginning of the event. This data was recently compiled by the German Science Day team.

The study conducted by the team evaluated the nine European nations that are most active in the field of new medical cancer therapies: Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

Overall, the biotechnology companies from the nine most important European nations are currently conducting 256 oncology development programmes, of which over 58 oncology pipeline projects are being driven forward by German biotech companies – in other words, 23 per cent of all European oncology development projects. This means that Germany’s biotechnology sector is the most active of all European countries in the field of cancer research.

In terms of the current level of development of oncology programmes, Germany is currently conducting 23 per cent of all phase I programmes. Germany is in the lead with 30 per cent of all phase II programmes in Europe and thus is responsible for 28 per cent of all cancer therapies in development. In terms of phase III programmes, Germany has 24 per cent of all companies and 21 per cent of all oncology development programmes and shares top place with Denmark.

Over ten private and listed German biotechnology companies with oncology agents in the development pipeline are expecting clinical milestones in 2012.

Among the companies to present their work at the German Science Day, many are expecting milestones and updates in their clinical programmes in 2012, including Antisense Pharma GmbH, MorphoSys AG, Silence Therapeutics AG, MOLOGEN AG und die 4SC AG.

For further information, please see http://german-science-day.de

A webcast is available in German at http://german-science-day.de/tlf_content/webcast-0.