Metromark Brings SC Biotech and Europe Together
August 16, 2013
CHARLESTON, SC – August 17, 2013 – Emerson Smith, President of Metromark Research, announces an opportunity for emerging partnerships between SC biotech and pharmaceutical companies and biotech companies in Poland. The European Union and the Republic of Poland’s Ministry of Economy is inviting representatives of United States biotech and pharmaceutical companies to apply for a full travel grant to participate in a trade mission in Warsaw on 24-26 September 2013.
“This is a mission that will allow South Carolina biotech companies to have one-on-one, face to face meetings with successful and emerging biotech companies in Poland,” Smith said. “Metromark is identifying successful, homegrown biotech and pharmaceutical companies to represent the State of South Carolina in Warsaw.”
SCRA and SC Launch have produced a number of successful biotech companies, including Iverson Genetics (Charleston), KIYATEC (Greenville) and Immunologix (Charleston), purchased in 2011 by Intrexon (Blacksburg, VA).
In addition to these three companies, other SC companies often mentioned as successful in this industry are BDI Pharma (Irmo), CreatiVasc (Greenville), IRIX (Florence), Norgenix (Spartanburg), Poly-Med (Anderson), and Selah Genomics (Greenville). “We know there are others and we’re trying to identify and publicize these companies,” says Smith. “This mission is, obviously, an opportunity for Poland to showcase its biotech and pharma sector. It is also an opportunity for South Carolina to showcase its companies in Europe.”
South Carolina has a rich history, thanks to Bobby Hitt and others at the SC Department of Commerce as well as city, county and regional development agencies, of attracting European companies, such as Adidas (Germany), BMW (Germany), BOSCH (Germany), GlaxoSmithKline (UK), LaFarge (France), Michelin (France) and others. Partnerships, including trade relationships, with European biotech companies, whether in Poland, the UK, France, German or any other EU country, may help bring European biotech and pharma companies to South Carolina.
“Economic development should be a two-way street,” Smith said, “encouraging mutual investment. France, for example, invests in South Carolina. Look at Michelin. In turn, we should encourage our companies to consider investment in France. This helps create a bond between France and South Carolina, with more investment on both sides. Too many economic developers are sales people and not facilitators, saying, ‘We want you to invest in our geographic area, but we’ve not interested in getting our companies to learn about or invest in your geographic area.’ That’s a one-way street, sometimes a dead-end.”
On the agenda for the first day of the Warsaw mission is a visit to the BIOTON labs in Macierzysz, a suburb of Warsaw. BIOTON is best known for its work in the development of products for the management of diabetes. The second day will include a visit to Mabion labs in Lodz, the third largest city in Poland, just southwest of Warsaw. Mabion specializes in the humanization of monoclonal antibodies that selectively fight tumor cells.
After visiting Mabion, the group will visit Technopark Lodz, an incubator for biotech and pharma companies. On the third day, US and Polish biotech/pharma companies will have one-on-one meetings to talk about potential partnerships. In addition to BIOTON and Mabion, other Polish companies represented include, at this time, Biovico, Genomed, Hasco Lek, Komtur Polska , Polpharma, and Unia Farmaceutyczna. The objective is to network for mutual benefit.
SC biotech and pharma companies should be selling their products and services in Poland or at least develop partnerships to create links between SC and Europe.
Poland, with a population of 39 million, is the sixth largest economy in the European Union, had an annual growth rate of 3.0 percent prior to the world recession and is the only country in the EU not to have experienced a negative GDP, never entering the recession that hit every other EU country and most industrialized countries in the world. Its growth rate in 2009 was 3.9 percent. In the second quarter of 2013, the growth rate is slower, but positive, at 0.8 percent.
Cities in Poland with significant biotech/pharma activity are Gdansk, Krakow, Lodz, Poznan, and Wroclaw.
An agenda and application forms for this trade mission are available by email request at [email protected]. Or call Emerson Smith for an American’s perspective on Poland and Europe at 803-256-8694. Emerson lived and did research in the UK as a Leverhulme Fellow at the University of Exeter, Devon, England. He works in the UK and continental Europe.
