BIO
Tat’s where the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) comes in. Joe Damond, senior vice president of international affairs, is responsible for advancing the interests of the biotech industry around the world. Although BIO is a US-based organisation, Damond highlights strong international membership and increasing engagement in the organisation by businesses from around the world. “Tese reflect both a growing interest in foreign countries in the biotech sector and the globalisation of the industry itself,” he says. “For those reasons, there was a desire to expand BIO’s engagement in international issues.”
Integral to the success of that department is Lila Feisee, vice president of international affairs, who has 10 years’ experience at BIO and particular expertise in how the organisation approaches the sometimes tricky issue of IP. She is helping organise and guide BIO’s international efforts.
Damond is clear about the organisation’s aims. “Our objective is to help foster a positive environment for the biotech industry overall, as well as in the countries in which we’re talking about,” he says. “It’s not just on behalf of the US industry that we’re doing this. We’re trying to promote policies and business environments and related environments, for example in the academic world, that help foster biotech research and development and commercial enterprises. Tat will be good for our members, regardless of where they’re located, and it will be good for the countries involved. Tey’re very interested in the question of what policies they should adopt to help foster a successful industry.”
While BIO could usefully wield influence in many jurisdictions, especially where there is no local equivalent organisation, clearly some places are more important than others. BIO members have asked the organisation to focus on the big emerging markets, Damond says, because of the high levels of growth in healthcare and all industry segments. Tere are two prongs to this: those markets provide potentially lucrative sales opportunities but, more interestingly, in several emerging markets there is considerable interest in developing a native biotech industry, which means there are opportunities for developing partnerships on the ground. “Tere is some good science being done in those industries, particularly in China, India and Brazil, and there’s also interest in Russia and Turkey,” Damond says.
10 Life Sciences Intellectual Property Review 2012
“TRYING TO ESTABLISH THE BIO AS A SOURCE OF USEFUL INPUT FOR HELPING COUNTRIES ACHIEVE SOME OF THEIR NATIONAL GOALS IS A TARGET.”
Tere are difficulties in all jurisdictions, but China and India, as the largest, have the most potential for both success and distress. Damond admits that BIO is “just getting off the ground in both ... our first step needs to be to establish relationships with some of the key government and business people, and non-government stakeholders, in those countries and educate them about BIO and the work we do”. Trying to establish the organisation as a source of useful input for helping countries achieve some of their national goals is a target, which means travelling to these markets, meeting some of the key people, and establishing credentials. “Te goal is developing a good dialogue with those governments and as that develops, we will get into the policy area and say ‘OK, what are you doing right, what aren't you, what more could the country be doing to develop innovation?’,” Damond says.
Feisee highlights some of the work BIO is already doing. “We had our first BIO China conference in Shanghai last October. It was well attended [and featured] partnership opportunities for the western companies that participated with Chinese companies. We’re doing another this year in October. For the past two years in India, we’ve held the BIO India conference in Hyderabad which has been mostly a partnering meeting, but we managed to have a few policy discussions and round tables as well. Tose are things we can build on.”
India is perhaps the most complicated of all
jurisdictions for the biotech industry. A huge, largely untapped market sits uneasily against a culture and political infrastructure that can be contradictory, especially where IP is concerned.
“Tere are definitely different perspectives on the industry within the country,” Damond says, “but there seems to be a desire to develop the biotech industry and make the pharma sector more innovative. On the other hand, with respect to IP and medicine, you find that there really isn’t coherent policy-making in this area within the Indian government. Tere are various pockets within India—some are pulling in one direction and some are pulling in the other and I think one of our tasks is going to be pointing that out and then working with them to get the right kind of policies adopted.” Tat’s no easy task, especially since beyond central government, the Indian states also have a role in policy-making.
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