Biotechnica 2011 Closes with Double-Digit Increases in Participation

The organizers of Biotechnica 2011, Europe’s leading trade fair and congress for biotechnology and the life sciences, proclaimed the event a solid success as it drew to a close on October 13, 2011.

“The themes featured at this year’s Biotechnica [Hannover, Germany] were right on target, and the show demonstrated impressive growth in terms of both exhibitor and attendance figures. This Biotechnica has clearly succeeded in highlighting the key importance of biotechnology in our daily lives and the world of commerce,” commented Dr. Andreas Gruchow, managing board member at Deutsche Messe, AG, Hannover (Germany), at the end of the three-day event.

Six-hundred-and-eighteen exhibitors from 28 different countries (up 24% over the previous year) were in Hannover, Germany, from October 11-13, 2011, to showcase a vast array of biotech innovations and their uses in medical, food manufacturing, and industrial applications as well as environmentally-friendly production techniques. Laboratory equipment, bioreactors, and a wide variety of services and information technology (IT) solutions for the biotech and pharmaceutical industries figured largely among the show’s displays. The list of top exhibiting nations was headed up by Switzerland, followed by France, United Kingdom, United States, and The Netherlands. Iran and Korea were on hand with large national pavilions.

The keynote themes at this year’s meeting were bioservices, food biotechnology, and industrial biotechnology. “The vast array of new developments in these areas underscored the biotech industry’s undiminished innovative power,” Mr. Gruchow remarked. New approaches to testing and ensuring food quality and safety were in great demand. Strong interest was also seen in approaches to using biotechnology to replace chemical and industrial production processes with more environment-friendly and sustainable alternatives. The new bioservices marketplace was extremely well received. Bioservices gives biotech and pharmaceutical suppliers a direct line to potential service providers for the development and production of new materials.

The key objectives for exhibitors at Biotechnica 2011 were to generate new business and stay in touch with their customer base. “As a global biotech industry supplier based in the German state of Lower Saxony, we consider Biotechnica to be an absolute must. This is our opportunity to meet up with customers and cooperation partners from the region while also seeing leads from across Germany and Europe,” commented Dr. Wolfgang Asche, product manager of fermentation technologies at Sartorius Stedim Biotech, GmbH (Göttingen, Germany).

The outcome of Biotechnica 2011 was also positive in terms of visitor turnout. The three-day event attracted a total of 11,000 visitors--up about 15% over 2010. “Double-digit growth in both exhibitors and visitors impressively confirms Biotechica’s reputation as the flagship fair for the European biotech and life sciences sector,” remarked Dr. Gruchow.

Approximately one-quarter of the show’s visitors were from abroad, with more coming particularly from European countries. The top visitor nations were the United Kingdom, Poland, Austria, France, and the Netherlands. Attendance from Italy, Sweden, and Russia was also on the rise.

Almost half of this year’s visitors stated having come to Biotechnica in order to gather inspiration for product development, as compared with just 12% who had indicated this in 2010. This year’s visitors assigned a considerably higher priority to finding possible business and research partners and searching the market for innovations. Visitors were largely interested in technology and services, biotech devices, laboratory equipment, and applications in the pharmaceutical and medical sectors.
Exhibitors praised the professional caliber and decision-making authority of the show’s attendees. One out of every three visitors was from the ranks of top management. As an additional consideration of this trend, this year’s Biotechnica attracted more owner-operators and specialists from large enterprises than in the past. Conferences, forums, and workshops featuring over 500 international speakers provided the ultimate complement to the exhibition program. Themes ranged from biomedicine to bioinformatics and food safety. “We exhibit at Biotechnica in order to generate leads and follow-up orders. We especially benefit from the many customers who head to our stand for a closer look at our products right after attending on-site conferences,” explained Erik Jans, business development manager, Europe, at MaxCyte (Gaithersburg, MD, USA).

One of the key goals of Biotechnica is to encourage networking and knowledge transfer among the scientific and business communities. In line with this objective, several collaborative research products were presented at the biotech products forum by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Some 120 scientists and researchers used the forum to impress a wide audience with the fruits of their labors.

The product and enterprise presentations given by Biotechnica exhibitors at the Biotechnica Innovation Forum were particularly well attended.

The Bio@venture Conference gave start-up business operators an opportunity to showcase their innovations to potential venture capital providers. The “job vector career day” also met with a very favorable response. Corporations such as BASF and Olympus Europe were on hand in order to convey their developments to scores of potential candidates.

The European Biotechnica Award was presented on the evening of the first day of Biotechnica. This year’s prize was targeted at European biotech and life science organizations with outstanding track records of nurturing tech transfer between research science and industry. The winner was Unitectra (Zurich, Switzerland)--a technology transfer organization that assists scientists from the Swiss Universities of Basel, Bern, and Zurich in taking their research findings to market. More than 1,300 invited guests from the research, business, and political communities attended the prize-giving ceremony.

The next Biotechnica will be staged from October 8-10, 2013.

Related Links:
Biotechnica 2011
Deutsche Messe