BIO 2012 Datebook Day 2: If You Are Talking Bio, It's the Economy and It's Global

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Reported by Annette Kreuger, Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--It has been a whirlwind of information here in Boston as the world's largest biotechnology conference continues at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, now through June 21. Sponsored by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) (Washington, D.C.), the conference has been filled with key industry insights and trends about the vital role of biotechnology across the world.

Continuing its tradition of attracting the globe's top speakers, BIO 2012 brought together former U.S. Treasury secretaries Henry Paulson Jr. and Robert Rubin as the featured keynote speakers on Tuesday, June 19. Despite a surprising general media ban on attending the event (allowing only industry trade journalists), those in attendance revealed a global focus.

BIO President & CEO Jim Greenwood moderated the discussion, tackling vital issues such as the present global economic trials stemming from the European sovereign debt crisis, the need to balance austerity and growth, and how such challenges and public policy reactions will affect biotechnology innovation and investment in the coming years.

Additionally, Ernst and Young released its annual report on the global biotech industry. Biotech has apparently made definite inroads to recovery from the dark days of 2009. Revenues increased about 10%, R&D investment increased 9%, and hiring is up 4%. Of course, myriad challenges remain for the pharmaceutical-biotech industry as a whole, with the big sticking point being how to recoup revenues as companies watch their profit makers sail right off the edge of the dreaded "patent cliff."

But Day 2 was not all "doom and gloom." And the globe, with all of its "economic challenges," remains the industry's ever-expanding playing field. No longer the "sleeping giant" Napoleon once described, China continues to position itself as a major global player in the international biotechnology arena. Biotechnology is one of the seven strategic priorities for scientific and technological development in China's 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015).

There are currently more than 100 biotech parks in various stages of development throughout China, drawing partnerships from big pharma majors such as GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK) (London, England) and Eli Lilly & Company (NYSE:LLY) (Indianapolis, Indiana), along with a number of top U.S. universities. As an emerging market, or "pharmerging" as viewed by the industry, China--especially Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong--is a particularly attractive target for growth with its demonstrated rising standard of living for its residents and targeted focus on expanding health care.

German industry major Boehringer Ingelheim took advantage of the conference to announce its new contract manufacturing (CMO) divisional name: BioXcellence. Currently, the division has three biopharmaceutical CMO facilities: Vienna, Austria; Biberach, Germany; and Fremont, California. All three offer the entire biomanufacturing technology chain in either mammalian cell culture technology or microbial fermentation.

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