Bio-Buzz No.12 / December 2007

IN THIS ISSUE

HEADLINE NEWS
INDUSTRY CORNER
EDITORIAL
EVENTS LISTINGS

We wish all our readership a Merry Christmas and success in 2008

Headline News

UKTI – OMIS special offer & market research briefings

‘UKTI South West has announced a limited offer to regional companies considering entering new markets. A voucher of up to £450 is available for use against an Overseas Market Introduction Service (OMIS) market research report commissioned through UKTI by 29th February 2008. In order to qualify for the full value of the voucher, then the OMIS order must have a value of at least £900 and registration of interest must be received by UKTI by 21st December 2007. There is a strict limit on the number of vouchers that can be issued, so please contact UKTI straight away if you are interested in taking up this excellent offer.

For more information please contact Rob Thompson (tel.07790 908821) or Nigel Green (tel.07879 481328)

In addition to OMIS, UKTI have other high value programmes that can help you with market research: the Export Market Research Scheme (EMRS) and the Export Communications Review (ECR). These two programmes are run for UKTI by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC). Clive Hogan from BCC will run a series of Market Research Briefings across the region. Click HERE for details of dates and venues for these briefings covering the January to March 2008 period. These are very popular, so book your place early.

INDUSTRY CORNER

The world of workshops and webinars

In January there are 2 events that may be of interest:

The British Business Angels Association (BBAA) are holding their 3rd Winter Workshop in Leeds on Tuesday 22nd Jan. The event will cover current relevant topics directly affecting those in the early stage investment market. Some of the subjects to be covered include taxation, legal issues, investment/investor readiness and the future direction of the early stage investment market. There will be a dinner the evening before. Full details are available HERE

An on-line seminar on Procurement Challenges for Innovators in the UK will be hosted by the Health Technologies KTN on the 8 January at 3.00pm. Details are available on the KTN website HERE. This will be a unique opportunity for UK SMEs to interact directly with John Wilkinson from the Association of British Healthcare Industries.

Technology requests - could your organisation provide the answer to somebody’s technology problem?


Each month a number of diverse requests are received by the regional Innovation Relay Centre. The aim of the Innovation Relay Centre Network is to bring companies, research institutes and universities across Europe together so that they can profit from each others research, technology and expertise. Building technology partnerships in this way has a range of benefits which include bringing in additional revenue as well as improved cost effectiveness and access to markets.

These requests can be viewed via the IRC website or via direct registration with the network. The list of November requests can be viewed HERE. For more information please contact Kenny Legg on 0117 933 0293 or email HERE with the details of the profile that interests you. If you’d like to receive your own personalised selection or profiles relevant to your areas of expertise please contact Kenny with details of your preferred areas.

UKTI news and information

The UK Life Science Marketing Strategy was launched by UKTI on 12 November 2007. You can find full details HERE But, the launch is seen as just the beginning of a programme to prove to the world that the UK is the global centre for Life Science creativity. UKTI will be setting up a Strategy Implementation Board that will lead on the planning and delivery of the marketing strategy. Digby, Lord Jones of Birmingham is inviting a senior figure within the Life Science sector to chair the board. The appointment of the other board members, to be elected following nomination, will commence early next year. For more information about the Strategy, The Implementation Board and the newly created Life Science Marketing Strategy Team within the Sector Team (led by Harriet Fear) contact Ian Bunker. Ian is the Senior Sector Manager for the new Strategy.

Marie Curie Fellowship links to the University of Otago, New Zealand

The University of Otago, New Zealand is actively engaged in the Marie Curie Incoming and Outgoing International Fellowships programme. The programme allows the training and mobility of excellent researchers as a mechanism for both career development and the sharing of skills and expertise. These fellowships allow either European researchers to undertake a fellowship in NZ, or NZ researchers to undertake a fellowship in Europe for 1-2 years. Fellowships are aimed at experienced researchers throughout their research career, and provide a generous salary, research costs and overheads. For more information about the programme and the possibilities with the University of Otago please contact Dr Anna Barlow

BIA – latest membership information and benefits

The Bio Industry Association offers a number of benefits to members including:

• Registration discount at the 6th annual BioPartnering North America conference (3-5 Feb 08, Vancouver) for full details click HERE. An additional 10% off the early registration rate is available to BIA members - representing a saving of nearly 30% if you register by 2nd January 2008. Now in its sixth year, BioPartnering North America is co-hosted by LifeSciences British Columbia, BIOTECanada and BioAlberta, and annually attracts leading executives and decision makers from across the life science sector.
  
  
• A €200 registration discount to biotech companies that are members of BIA for BIO-Europe Spring 2008. For full programme click HERE. BIO-Europe Spring is the Spring counterpart of BIO-Europe (the world’s largest stand-alone partnering conference). Please note that you must state “BIA member” in the comment field within the online registration form to receive the discount. Biotech companies are encouraged to submit an application for a 15-minute company presentation.



• There is also an opportunity for young innovative start-up companies to give a 7-minute oral presentation within the "Next Generation" session at BIO-Europe Spring 2008. Please apply HERE



• The BIA has just announced a unique new membership benefit: a significant discount on an annual subscription to the on-line IPEEX corporate finance platform. IPEEX is described as the most powerful tool available when it comes to accelerating the funding of your company since it is able to predict the best new lead investors and the best syndicate members as a result of having tracked and profiled all investors’ investment track records and their co-investment relationships. Approx 3000 investors are profiled including VCs, hedge funds, mainstream institutions and family offices that have invested into UK companies from Europe, Asia & North America.

EDITORIAL

FP7 embraces the rest of the world

You may not be aware that the EU funded Framework 7 programme is now open for collaboration with the Rest of the World. This is an exciting and important development.

Opportunities for European/US collaboration – By Sophie Laurie

Framework Programme Seven has as part of its ambition the desire to become truly global. As a result, as well as having Specific International Cooperation Actions (SICAs) the whole programme is now described as being open to any country in the world. This does not mean of course that all countries can receive funding – there is a list of eligible International Cooperation Partner Countries available via the CORDIS website HERE.

However, the EC is endeavouring to build special bilateral relationships with other developed and developing countries outside Europe, for example the US, where funders in those countries guarantee to support their researchers in joint consortium proposals to FP7.

Several examples of these can be seen in the currently open 2008 call for Food, Agriculture, Fisheries and Biotechnology click HERE and a couple of examples are the calls; KBBE-2008-3-1-01: Plant natural products - Alternative sources for the synthesis of bioactive or industrial added value products; and KBBE-2008-3-2-07: Industrially relevant products and processes from marine biotechnology.

The UK research councils are also interested in increasing opportunities for UK/US interaction and a Research Councils UK office has recently opened in Washington to assist in building these links. You can find further details on this and other offices on the RCUK website HERE.

For more information contact Sophie Laurie (Bioscience for Business KTN)

EVENTS LISTINGS

Covering Lifesciences (biotechnology) and Medical interests can be found at HERE

Contact Us

For further information on any of these items, please visit our website:
www.bioapproaches.co.uk or contact us directly.

Jade Fulbrook-Smith – Project Coordinator, BioBuzz Editor
Tel: 07715 856262 Email: Jade@BioApproaches.co.uk

Dr Pauline Lee – Network Manager
Tel: 07710 779548 Email: pauline@BioApproaches.co.uk

BioApproaches SW is funded by the South West of England Regional Development Agency to support the professional and business development of the South West of England Lifesciences and Biotechnology Industry.