A new EU initiative, Transbio (Matching Transoceanic Biotech Opportunities), has been set up to help life sciences companies find development partners in North America.
Transbio is currently funded for the next two years and involves six European partners from Scotland, Spain, Germany, Sweden, Austria, Belgium and two North American partners from Massachusetts and Quebec
The aim is to help SMEs improve their competitiveness through the creation of technology partnerships and the joint development of products that are relevant to both the European and North American markets.
The initial task involves gathering profiles of technologies that are ready for commercialisation and technologies that companies are seeking to acquire or in-license.
The technology or product being offered must be innovative. The technology profiles will be posted on Transbio’s technology database and circulated to the eight partners in the project to try to find suitable partners.
The partners involved in the Transbio consortium have wide ranging experience and specialist expertise in assisting companies in the life science sector. They are, CIDEM, the Centre for Innovation and Business Development, based in Barcelona, Spain; Targeting Innovation, based in Glasgow and Aberdeen, UK; UMINOVA Innovation, based in Umea, Sweden; Bayern Innovativ, based in Nuremberg, Germany; FlandersBio, based in Ghent, Belgium; and, AWS, Austria Wirtschaftsservice, based in Vienna, Austria.
In North America the partners are MOITI, the Massachusetts Office of International Trade & Investment, based in Boston, and PÒLE Quebec Chaudière-Appalaches, based in Québec, Canada.
Transbio will also be participating in international life science conferences, where companies registered with the project will be able to take part in partner brokerage events. These include MEDICA 2006 in Duusseldorf, Germany, November 2006; International One-on-One Cooperation forum, (attached to Forum Life Science 2007 International Congress and Exhibition), Munich, 12-13 February 2007; and Mass Bio Investment conference, Boston, November 2007.
More from Alison Orr, [email protected]
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