Summary

Lyonbiopôle: a competitive cluster focused on the global fight against infectious diseases

A global center of excellence in vaccines and diagnostics, Lyonbiopôle, accredited as a world competitive cluster by the French State on July 12th, 2005, aims to gain a comprehensive understanding of human and animal infectious diseases. This expertise ranges from diagnostics and prevention to treatment, with the development of innovative delivery systems.

This “integrated” approach aims to build a “healthcare shield” in order to protect populations against these diseases.

The cluster is founded upon the expertise of the Lyon-Grenoble area strengthening the synergy between the complementary know-how of these two metropolitan areas: large scale industrial production and functional biology in Lyon, and structural biology and micro & nanotechnology in Grenoble.

Lyonbiopôle is headed by Philippe Archinard, President of Transgene, Scientific Director of Mérieux Alliance, and President of France-Biotech.

He is supported by a Board of Directors   composed of company managers (bioMérieux, sanofi pasteur, Merial, BD, OPi and Protein’eXpert) and research centers (CEA, Inserm, CNRS and the Mérieux Foundation).

The cluster’s founding members and partners have designed Lyonbiopôle as:

- A “factory” for producing multi-partner R&D projects,

- A means to link the industrial and academic spheres and bring them closer together

Lyonbiopôle’s strengths are based on the following points :

1) The cluster is focused on infectious diseases

• With a comprehensive approach ranging from diagnostics and prevention (vaccines) up to treatment, exploring new methods made possible by biotechnology (therapeutic vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, gene and cell therapy and more) to build a healthcare shield in order to meet public health challenges and remain a leader on thriving markets.

2) It meets healthcare and economic challenges

The re-emergence of infectious diseases and pathologies induced by viral pathogens (such as virally induced cancers), pandemics, epizootics, the risk of bioterrorism and more.

3) It is active in dynamic markets

The vaccine market is growing by 25% every year, and the diagnostics market by 6%.

4) It is led by firms with the involvement of all major stakeholders within the cluster’s scope of action

• With world-leading firms: sanofi pasteur, with a 24% share of the world vaccine market, Merial, the world leader in veterinary products, bioMérieux in bacteriological diagnostics, BD in medical devices, and start ups (such as Protein’eXpert, OPi, Flamel and others).
• Capitalizing on Lyon’s complementary expertise in industrial biology (IFR BioSciences in Gerland, ENS, the Biosafety Level 4 Laboratory and others), as well as Grenoble’s top-flight expertise in micro and nanotechnologies (with the CEA and Nanobio) and in structural biology (with ESRF, EMBL and others).

Lyonbiopôle is built upon a particularly advantageous blend of expertise, which comes from its distinctive know-how in complementary fields:

• Firms working on animal health and human health, a vector for combined innovation
• A strong link between diagnostics, vaccines and medical devices that are highly complementary in the approaches to infectious diseases and new therapies
• Scientific expertise in functional and industrial biology in Lyon and structural/micro-nanobiotechnologies in Grenoble

Lyonbiopôle thus features all of the key factors to success for a cluster: :

• World-leading firms (bioMérieux, sanofi pasteur, Merial and BD)
• An entrepreneurial spirit (SMBs and start ups) that is strengthened by the opportunity for start ups to sign partnership agreements or service contracts with the cluster’s major firms.
• Scientific and technological excellence, based on the complementarity of the two regions
• Worldwide exposure
  • Of the world-class scientific platforms (the Biosafety Level 4 Laboratory, EMBL, ESRF and others)
  • European excellence networks VirGil and Nano2Life
  • Top-name events, such as BioVision
• Local authorities mobilized to support and assist the cluster and its activities

A first set of concrete results:

• Since 2005, the cluster has supported some one hundred R&D projects. Fifty-three have already been accredited or are currently in the accreditation process. This represents a total of €125 million in investment and an estimated €43 million in public funding.
• In all, approximately €28 million in public funding has been obtained from the French State, local authorities, the ANR and the European Commission for 22 R&D projects involving approximately €87 million in investment.

With a flexible management team in the field, Lyonbiopôle’s action plan is to:

1) Build a “project factory” in order to support innovation

• A vector for firms’ competitiveness
• A means to make the region more attractive

2) Strengthen the cluster’s position internationally :

• Human and animal healthcare-related markets are global in nature, as are the potential competitors and partners
• Target countries: The United States in order to present our strengths to the world’s largest and most dynamic market. Emerging countries in order to develop cooperative ventures within the cluster’s fields of activity. European countries of the Eurobiocluster-Sud.

3) Implement effective tools for the success of the cluster, its firms and the region: :

• The Infectious Disease Center
• The collective involvement of large firms in collaborating with SMBs and academics.

4) Create the Infectious Disease Center, the cornerstone of the cluster, whose capital role will involve:

• Bringing together public and private research teams within the cluster’s scope of action
• Hosting cutting-edge research activities with high-level infrastructures
• Attracting internationally renowned research teams to the region
• Boosting the international exposure of the cluster and the region