Enlarging networks

More ample international deployment

International presence is a major component of Genopole’s growth strategy. Building intercluster alliances increases the impact and reach of actions to support innovation. Being present for biotech events wherever they may be in the world seats Genopole’s renown and enables benchmarking against best practices and the prospection of companies potentially interested in joining the biocluster.

Although the pandemic hampered in-person possibilities, a number of European and extra-European events were held.

BIO, the world’s top international biotech convention, was held virtually in June. For the event, Genopole partnered with Business France, Choose Paris Region, Medicen and others to promote the advantages of the Île-de-France Region. The videoconference united 21 companies sharing their aspirations for development in France. BIO strengthened Genopole’s ties to the North Carolinian (USA) research cluster Triangle Park, the Japanese cluster Kawasaki and the Belgian cluster BioWin.

To increase the biocluster’s visibility in the United States, Genopole participated in a meeting organized by the Ohio Chapter of the French-American Chamber of Commerce, notably on the subject of the health and biotech sectors. The event was an opportunity to attract American companies to the biocluster and ease the arrival of Genopole companies in the US.

In Europe

Held in Munich, the Old Continent’s BIO International twin, BIO-Europe Spring, was a privileged opportunity to meet with new (CataloniaBio (Spain)) and already-known (BioWin (Wallonia, Belgium), BioM (Munich Germany), etc.) clusters and participate in close to 30 meetings with several pharmaceutical companies such as BJT Pharma and key account companies like Seppic, a specialist in cosmetics, dietary supplements and pharmaceutical ingredients.

There too, Genopole, an event "Gold Sponsor" with Choose Paris Region and Medicen, promoted the assets of the Île-de-France Region in health innovation and especially the biomanufacturing sector.

Year 2021 also brought new partnerships with European clusters. The Eastern European nations were given priority because of their strong potential in computational genomics and innovative biotherapies, both strategic sectors for Genopole. Partnerships were created with Lithuanian (Lithuanian Biotechnology Association), Estonian (Tartù Biocluster/University), Slovenian (Technology Park Ljubljana), Danish (Medicon) and German (Biocon Valley) clusters, with which Genopole was able to submit the European projects URINBB and Braintech.

The biocluster also reinforced its ties to the ALISEI (Advanced Life Science in Italy) network, created during the September Meet in Italy event (more than 300 participants from the field of health biotechnologies) to encourage interactions between multidisciplinary research, pharmaceutical industries and public health organisms in Italy.

"During a global-scale health crisis that revealed biotech’s potential for innovation, Genopole accelerated its support for the international development of companies by multiplying its joint projects with other European clusters and its connections on the international scene"

Laurent Pépin, Director of Prospection and Partnerships

Committed to a European dynamic

Reelected to the executive committee of the Council of European BioRegions (CEBR) network, Genopole participated in the Internationalization Special Interest Group, which builds upon intercluster partnerships to ease the deployment of companies outside of their native countries. That work also gave rise to a European-scale analysis of the biomanufacturing sector. Still in the setting of that sector, Genopole teamed with EIT Health, a health innovation network uniting more than 150 partners, and that network opened a door to another, EIT Food, a recent European community focused on innovations for sustainable and healthy nutrition. Both played a role in the creation of the Food4Health initiative to support novel products marrying nutrition and health, an axis aligned with the Protopia foodlab project currently underway with Genopole’s leadership.

A network of university partners

Training is a keystone element of Genopole’s contributions to the biotech innovation value chain. The biocluster continues to expand its network of European Universities, with the recent additions of the University of Porto (Portugal), the University of Szeged (Hungary), Greifswald Medical School (Germany) and the Hanze University of Applied Sciences (Netherlands). Two are members of EUGLOH, of which Genopole is an associated partner.

Genopole: an EUGLOH associate

Counting five European higher learning institutes, the European University Alliance for Global Health (EUGLOH) was born of a pilot initiative co-financed by the Erasmus+ program and coordinated by Paris-Saclay University. At the 2021 EUGLOH annual conference held in October, Genopole presented its expertise in entrepreneurship and biotechnologies and their utility for adapting training to emerging needs in business or for learning transversal entrepreneurial competencies.