BioWorld International Correspondent

BRUSSELS, Belgium - The European pharmaceutical industry's lobby for biotechnology firms, Emerging BioPharmaceutical Enterprises, has run into trouble with its leadership. Newly elected Chairman Elliot Goldstein stepped down Monday following his resignation from British Biotech plc.

EBE is currently without a manager, either. Brian Ager, the director general of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations - the parent association to which EBE belongs - was holding talks in Brussels Tuesday with EFPIA President Sir Tom McKillop over how to deal with the crisis.

The avowed aim of the EBE group, a pharmaceutical biotech advocacy group representing 34 companies on the EU scene, is to foster in Europe a favorable business and policy environment in which emerging companies involved in the research and development of biopharmaceutical technologies can grow and expand. But no replacement has yet been appointed for Anne Papin, who had been the manager of the EBE office since it was set up 18 months ago until she moved to Johnson & Johnson in the summer. The job description for the EBE manager includes handling the organizational structure, participating in the definition of EBE strategy and actions, coordinating EBE activities in a coherent manner, supervising EBE communications and high-level representation of EBE on the European scene.

A spokesman for EFPIA told BioWorld International Tuesday that there are currently nine candidates for the post of manager, but no appointment has yet been made and it may be the end of the year before a new manager is in position.

EBE has two vice presidents, Ernesto Bertarelli of Serono SA and Peter Heinrich of MediGene AG. Bertarelli, EBE's president until he was replaced in the summer by Goldstein, is on an extended sailing holiday in New Zealand, so it is expected that Heinrich will be asked to keep the association operating in the interim.

The hiatus comes at a crucial time for the European biotechnology sector, since EBE is one of the principal lobby groups with a role in the current European-level discussions of biotechnology policy. Not only is the EU currently working on a development strategy to assist the sector, but there also are important discussions under way in EU legislation on pharmaceuticals (with particular significance for biotechnology products), and the EU's new five-year research program (with a €2.5 billion allocation for life sciences and gene therapy) is just about to come on-stream.

To complicate matters for EFPIA, it has also recently lost another of its key figures, Frank Morich, who recently left Bayer AG in Germany. Morich was one of the seven delegates from drug companies on EFPIA's influential board of directors. It is understood that the subject of his replacement on the EFPIA board was also under discussion at the Ager-McKillop meeting Tuesday.