Science: Evry: France’s first gene and biotech city

Founded in 1998, the French Genopole of Evry enjoys an international repute. A gene campus that welcomes researchers, students, entrepreneurs, and soon, doctors, this biotech park dedicated to the life sciences has successfully attracted public and private laboratories, start-ups, and major international companies to the new city of Evry, Essone, located 25 km from Paris. Two key projects are on the agenda: the creation of a biomanufacturing centre and the construction of a new hospital.

With biotechnology undergoing unprecedented development, the creation in 1998 of the Evry Genopole on the initiative of the French government, regional authorities, and the French Muscular Dystrophy Association (AFM), has helped realise the French government’s ambition of making this biotech park dedicated to genome sciences and technologies one of the leading research centres in the field. “The first step was to create a high-level and truly multidisciplinary scientific campus”, states Pierre Tambourin, Chief Executive of Genopole. Its mission: to foster life sciences research and promote the transfer of technologies to the industrial sector.

Situated in the south of Paris, in the “new city” of Evry, Genopole plays host to 26 research laboratories (independent or belonging to leading French research institutes such as the CNRS, Inserm, INRA, CEA, etc.), a university teaching unit, and 51 biotechnology companies, located in a 70,100-sq.m area. Several international companies are also established on the premises (including such prestigious groups as Aventis, and Limagrain). A broad range of scientific themes is represented, from biology, mathematics, physics and chemistry to engineering sciences.

Over 1,800 people work on-site, and Genopole has established a partnership with the neighbouring University of Evry-Val-d’Essonne, which offers extensive training in biology and related sciences. On the industrial side, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Essonne has built a 2,600-square-metre business incubator. “We meet all of the requirements necessary to ensure that all aspects of research can be carried out successfully: generating knowledge, transmitting the data to students and transferring it as rapidly as possible to companies so they can convert this knowledge into new products and innovative services”, explains Pierre Tambourin.

Three organisations were originally established on the site prior to the creation of Genopole: the Genethon, a research laboratory financed by the French Muscular Dystrophy Association via its Telethon donation which, since its creation in 1987, has enabled significant advances in the understanding of genetic neuromuscular diseases (such as myopathies); the Genoscope, France’s National Sequencing Centre, which contributed to the sequencing of the human genome, in 2003; and the National Genotyping Centre, dedicated to the identification of genes associated with hereditary diseases.

Genopole is very active internationally and has initiated, from the onset, multiple exchanges with non-French scientists and entrepreneurs. “We have already hosted over forty international delegations, and the number of partnership requests continue to rise. For example, South Africa is very interested in forming a partnership with Genopole as a gateway into Europe”, observes Gabriel Mergui, director of Genopole International. Genopole has focused its international initiatives on the main biotech centres in Western Europe (Cambridge, Munich, and Barcelona), Eastern Europe (Russia), Asia (China, Japan), Israel, and North America (California, New England and Quebec). In November 2003, Genopole thus signed a partnership agreement with the Quebec Biotechnology Innovation Centre (CQIB). This contract sealed a relationship intended to promote scientific and business exchanges between seed companies in Evry and Greater Montreal.

Genopole is also significantly involved in two major European programmes: the Bio-Link consortium and NATIBS. “Both programmes have one and the same goal: to improve our effectiveness through mutual cooperation and by pooling our tools with other European incubators and bio-clusters”, sums up Gabriel Mergui. “For us, the main incubator in the Paris region is Genopole, a definite and undisputed leader in the field of genomic research and higher education”, confirms Nigel Wild, managing director of Oxfordshire BiotechNet Limited and coordinator of the European consortium Bio-Link.

Genopole is a key component of the MédiTech Santé competitiveness hub (one of six world-class high-tech clusters). MédiTech Santé’s recent designation as a “competitiveness hub” by the French government has provided new impetus for the Ile-de-France region and its industrial partners involved in the creation of healthcare platform focussed on a neurosciences and biotechnology. “Essonne is poised to become France’s leading region in terms of innovation. New bridges are being built. We passed the entrance exam: now it’s time to get to work”, exclaims Pierre Tambourin, also project leader of the MediTech Santé hub.

Genopole is shifting into higher gear with two major projects: the creation of a biomanufacturing centre for therapeutic molecules in 2007 and the construction of a new University Hospital Centre (CHU) in the centre of the campus. The goal is to promote synergies between researchers, doctors and entrepreneurs, and more notably, to establish a continuum dedicated to therapeutic innovation. The recent creation, in partnership with the French Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm), of a stem cell research centre to investigate rare genetic diseases clearly reinforces the MédiTech’ Santé structure.

Contributing to future medical research and positioning France as one of the world’s key players in the biotech field are among Genopole’s main priorities.

Annik Bianchini

Website: www.genopole.fr

Last updated: 18.01.2006