European Commission lays down path to future-proof EU biotechnology
In a communication presented on Wednesday (20 March), the European Commission unveiled actions meant to drive Europe’s biotechnology and biomanufacturing forward despite numerous challenges.
“We want to make Europe a global biotech leader,” Commission vice-president and competition chief Margrethe Vestager said at a press conference presenting the actions meant to stimulate more development in biotechnology and biomanufacturing.
Biotech is of major importance to various sectors such as health, agrifood and environment. For the health sector, it has led to many groundbreaking medical developments, such as insulin and mRNA vaccines like the ones against COVID-19.
The Commission’s communication said that a thriving EU biotech ecosystem is “of strategic importance for the effectiveness of healthcare and resilience of health systems in times of strain such as public health emergencies”.
However, biotech companies face a wide range of challenges, recognised in the Commission’s text.
These challenges include the need to support more research and development, complex administrative procedures threatening Europe’s competition, the difficulty in accessing finance, skills, intellectual property, as well as value chain obstacles and gaining public acceptance.
Their list of actions to tackle those issues includes stimulating more research and development, including helping companies make better use of AI, as well as stimulating market demand, shortening the time it takes to place innovations on the market, and channelling more investments into biotech.
Specific actions to combat regulatory challenges will be the establishment of an EU Biotech Hub, which, according to Vestager will be set up before the end of the year.
According to the text, it will serve as “an operational tool for biotech companies to navigate through the regulatory framework and identify support to scale up”.
The Commission text also promises to evaluate how different EU laws could potentially be improved to facilitate the process of getting products on the market. During that process, they will also evaluate whether it is necessary to develop an EU Biotech Act.
Commenting on the proposal, Claire Skentelbery, director general of EuropaBio, the European Association for Bioindustries, called for immediate implementation of the actions.
“The next Commission must combine long-term vision and bold ambitions with immediate and urgent attention to resolve existing barriers to growth. The world is accelerating industrial outputs from biotechnology, and we need to move with it,” Skentelbery added.
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