Anna Maciejewska - cebiotech.com  

What profits you expect to obtain from the BioForum 2011?

Barbara Bengyel - Solvo Biotechnology : The BioForum 2011 event offers valuable opportunity for SOLVO Biotechnology to meet some of its key customers and build relation with potential partners in the region in the field of drug discovery and research.  It allows us to discover biotech partnering prospects in Poland and the neighboring countries.

Is this a chance for young companies to come around on the biotechnology market?

Yes, definitely! Besides having an excellent idea to enter the market, the most important value of the company is its team, better to say the people who form the company. The most important is to have the strategic view of the market, to work out a strong valuable business model and to find enough financial sources to survive the first couple years.

Do you know anything about biotechnology in Poland?

We are aware of Poland is being an attractive target country for outsourcing, having many contracted research and manufacturing companies especially in the pharmaceutical sector.  Most of them are SMEs (small and middle-size companies).  There is a strong network of the Polish Biotechnology Platform. The government is focusing on the knowledge-based development and taking part in the EU Innovative Economy Operational Programme of 2007-2013. R&D funding comes from the government in most of the cases.

In comparison to Poland what is the situation in your country on the biotechnology's market?

The Hungarian Biotech Association has a strong presence on the economic scene helping Hungarian companies to have resources to public grants in order to intensively drive the research and development activities in the field. Talented scientists are employed at the companies, and there is a strong effort continuously to bring researchers home from other countries and make them stay.

Do you have any advice to young polish people who have just finished their studies?

Make sure you know foreign languages, preferably English. Spend several years of your career on the science side before going into business development, sales or marketing, develop good presenting skills and start working on a network as soon as possible. Never underestimate a contact! Someone who might not seem relevant in the first instance might be very important at a later point in your life. The biotechnology sector is international without borders, but there must be plenty of opportunities in Poland as well, as the countries in this region (including Hungary as well) develop rapidly. There are many biotechnology trends these days including the new areas to explore in the field of nanotechnology, personalized medicine but also bioengineering or bioinformatic has a great future as more and more data is available.