EuropaBio Newsletter 24

EuropaBio's Weekly Newsletter

Who Benefits from IP Rights in Agricultural Innovation?

The WIPO Magazine looks into the benefits from IP rights in agricultural innovation by taking as example a recent study by EuropaBio and CropLife International, which follows the journey of Ogura, an oilseed rape technology developed by INRA, the French National Research Institute. The study analyses the time and money innovators invested, the benefits to farmers and consumers, and the role of intellectual property in making it all possible. Read more

Europe's Circular Bioeconomy at a Turning Point

The next two years will be critical for the future of the European bio-based industries, says Joanna Dupont-Inglis, EuropaBio's Director for Industrial Biotechnology. Although home to cutting-edge research in industrial biotechnology, Europe needs to step up its game if it is to develop a resource-efficient, circular bioeconomy, with a number of measures needed to enable this. Read more

Healthcare biotech

Save the date for the next EuropaBio conference “From Science to Patients: Enabling Personalised Medicine through Healthcare Biotechnology”, which will take place on 12 October and will bring together key European policy-makers and civil society representatives to discuss the scientific, social and economic benefits of personalised medicines, as well as of other healthcare biotechnology products, and ways to tackle the key challenges for improving patients’ access to these therapies.

Agricultural biotech

This month, several WTO member states raised concerns about the recently published European Commission’s proposal to allow EU Member States to ban the use of GMOs approved for imports at EU level. These concerns echoed the critical reception the proposal received from EU legislators. Comments from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, and the United States were published on the Commission’s website, and media reported that additional countries including Paraguay have raised their concerns orally.

Industrial biotech

The Bio-Based Industries Joint Undertaking (BBI JU) has launched its second call for proposals, aimed at speeding up the development of new biorefineries in Europe. Worth €106 million in total and focused on exploiting synergies across sectors, the call will support research, innovation, and demonstration projects in new intermediary and end products from biological sources. The deadline for proposals is 3 December 2015.

Key dates to keep in mind

Sept 8-10: Global Cleantech Summit (Helsinki, Finland)
Sept 9-10: Nordic Life Science Days (Stockholm, Sweden) MEMBER DISCOUNT!
Sept 10: Flanders Meeting Wallonia in the Biobased Economy (Ghent, Belgium)
Sept 28-29: ICC Working out ABS conference (Paris, France)
Oct 12-18: European Biotech Week (across Europe)
Oct 14-16: Bio Latin America (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) MEMBER DISCOUNT!
Oct 14-16: BioJapan 2015 World Business Forum (Yokohama, Japan)
Oct 27-29: European Forum for Industrial Biotechnology and the Bioeconomy (Brussels, Belgium)
Nov 16-17: Biolatam 2015 (Santiago, Chile)
Nov 16-17: Global Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Conference (London, UK) MEMBER DISCOUNT!
Nov 23-24: European Business Development Conference (Berchem, Belgium)
Dec 1-2: BioFIT 2015 (Strasbourg, France) MEMBER DISCOUNT!
Dec 12: Workshop: Navigating safely through the regulatory triangle (Brussels, Belgium) MEMBER DISCOUNT!

Register for ICC's "Working out ABS" on 28-29 September and get the latest information on how to comply with new EU Rules implementing the Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit sharing (ABS) just weeks before these become fully applicable on 12 October 2015.