European Innovation Council

So the life sciences sector, it's extremely important, but as we've been hearing already from Orla and from Maria, it has so many challenges in Europe now, from navigating the rules of 27 member states, to speeding up approvals, to increasing the number of clinical trials, and more besides.

So we're going to discuss as much of this as possible today, up until two o'clock, we'll have two panel discussions, then the Health Minister will join us as well, and you will be able to participate directly all of those conversations because we will have a roaming microphone and you can put your questions directly to our guests today and the journalist in me must remind you that all comments are being made on the record and I let you into a little journalistic secret there's no such thing as off the record so now you know So let's begin our conversation and let me welcome to our stage here Rachel Shelley who is Global Head of Life Sciences and Food with IDA Ireland and Professor Mark Ferguson who is former Chairperson of the European Innovation Council Board and we're joined on screen today as part of this panel discussion by Anouk Duvray, Head of Government Affairs and Policy at Johnson & Johnson in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

And finally, Thomas Van Kang, who is Deputy Head of Unit and Head of the Biotech Task Force at the European Commission's Directorate General for Health and Food Safety.

so i might start with you thomas um from the european commission's perspective if you could set out what you believe the eu needs to do in order to secure global leadership in the life sciences

Where we have a problem is scaling.

Scaling those startups into large, meaningful companies is where the US excels.

So what has the Commission done to address this? Well, the first thing was the formation of the European Innovation Council.

Remember, I am biased, because I was to do with the beginning of that, and I was also the first chair.

What money, how much, what conditions?

The European Innovation Council five years ago announced its own programme which has been divided not by countries but by the Council itself.

It is more than 50 million euro ongoing process when you can apply on really every single stage of development.

It might be for those who already established this company or those who are thinking about it.

I'd never actually pronounced ISMEA before.

I'd only ever seen it written E-I-S-M-E-A, but most of you might be I imagine, familiar with the EIC, the European Innovation Council, and maybe even Isman, the work they do for startups, for scale-ups, and just the wider innovation ecosystem within Europe.

Obviously, this is a branch of the commission that works on providing guidance, mentorship, and importantly, funding to important and rising companies in Europe.

So Momche and I were able to chat on that kind of policy side of things, which is, missing i think in my opinion especially within this very podcast series representatives of these organizations that kind of clarify how the funding works where the funding comes in what the requirements are what their interests are so he was able to shed light on all of this and we were able to talk also on just his uh wider opinion on how he sees the whole ecosystem developing the next five to ten years and how europe stacks up when it comes to uh international comparisons, and even specific companies that he thinks are good examples of successful European innovation.

Thank you, David.

Well, my name is Monchil Sabef.

I'm the director of ISMEA, which is the European Innovation Council and SME Executive Agency.

It's a long name, but that's essentially the implementation arm of the European Innovation Council and some of the small and medium enterprise programs involved.

We are now back in Horizon, Horizon Europe, but UK organisations still don't have access to certain of the equity funding from Europe.

So things like the European Innovation Council funding, which is one of Europe's largest deep tech investment vehicles, we don't have access to that.

And then investors are also looking at, well, what are their exit routes? And that can be challenging at the moment as well.

with IPO activity subdued and acquirers being quite selective.