BioWorld International Correspondent

PARIS - The Grenoble region in southeastern France, already known as a hotbed of high-technology industries, has ambitions of becoming a major player in the biotechnology sector as well.

The Association for the Development of Biotechnology in the Greater Grenoble Area (Adebag) was created in 2000 to foster the start-up and development of new biotechnology firms and earlier this month it signed a cooperation agreement with a counterpart in Belgium, BioVallée, which located in the Charleroi region south of Brussels. The alliance is aimed at promoting the development of firms in both regions and exploiting potential technological, industrial and commercial synergies.

Adebag's funding comes from local and regional public bodies and research establishments and foundations. It is investing €6 million in the construction of an incubator called Biopolis. Construction will get under way shortly and the facility is due to be completed at the end of this year.

The director of Adebag, Valérie Ayache, told BioWorld International that Biopolis would accommodate both newly created and existing firms, pointing out that there are at least five start-ups currently housed in research institutes or universities that would like to establish independent premises at Biopolis. While an exact number of firms to be housed there is not known, she was already worried that it will be fully occupied upon opening.

The members of Adebag include 15 biotechnology and bioindustrial firms, the largest and oldest being the DNA sequencing and bioinformatics company Genome Express. Another seven projects (four focused on biotechnology and three on the biomedical area) are expected to get off the ground in the coming months, Ayache said.

The partnership with the Belgians has yielded its first fruit. A young company in Grenoble, Protein'eXpert, concluded a research and development agreement with Charleroi-based start-up Delphi Genetics for the optimization of a new protein expression technology.

After BioVallée, said Ayache, Adebag is due to sign a cooperation agreement with a regional biotechnology association in northern Italy.