French government comes to the aid of the biotech sector

France’s Strategic Investment Fund (Fonds Stratégique d’Investissement, FSI) is coming to the aid of the country’s biotechs, setting up a partnership with the industry body France Biotech, to consider how best the fund can support the sector.

Philippe Pouletty, President of France Biotech and Gilles Michel, Directeur général of the FSI, announced the move at a meeting in Paris earlier this week.

Michel said that after making initial investments in other sectors, the FSI now wishes to extend its activity into Life Sciences. The partnership with France Biotech will help the FSI to evaluate how it should invest.

FSI is a €6 billion fund set up on 19 December 2008 to invest in companies with the potential to contribute to the growth and competitiveness for the French economy.

This partnership aims to provide the FSI with in-depth knowledge of France’s biotech sector, identify companies with strong potential, to inform member companies of France Biotech about the FSI funding and the terms and conditions under which it invests, and to help complete the financing chain and enable the sector to build an international presence.

Philippe Pouletty, president of France Biotech said, "We welcome the willingness of FSI to invest alongside private investors in innovative start-ups with strong potential, which are the main engine of our growth."

A study published on 3 March by France Biotech, demonstrated that the sector is maturing, with an increase in the number of drugs in development. However, it also highlighted a 79 per cent fall in investment in 2008 compared to 2007, and called on the government to launch a stimulus plan for young high tech start-ups.

At the meeting in Paris, Pouletty hosted a roundtable on, ‘How to establish a chain of global funding for growing innovative start-ups to generate growth?’ Along with Michel, this featured Hervé Brailly, CEO of Innate Pharma, Andre Choulika, CEO Cellectis, Florent Gros, Managing Director, Novartis Venture Funds and Patrick Langlois, former Vice Chairman of Aventis and now a director of several biotech companies.