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Biopharma sector conference this week

Tuesday, October 02 14:51:11

The pharmaceutical sector has played a vital role in Ireland's high valued export industry, which has driven our positive export growth for many years but serious problems lie ahead, of the National BioPharma Summit will hear on Friday.

The conference takes place in the Croke Park Conference Centre in conjunction with Ernst & Young.

The event will focus on the challenge of continuing to develop this sector as a centre of excellence for innovation and development.

Drugs facing patent expiration, a rise in competition from generic drugs, increasing and changing regulation and an increasing global supply chain, are all contributing to the uncertain landscape of the pharmaceutical and bio industries.

"In an environment where there are significant competitive pressures from other territories Ireland needs to continue to enhance its tax regime both to retain existing investment in the BioPharma sector and to secure new investment," said Aidan Meagher, Head of Life Sciences, Ernst and Young.

"This can be achieved through providing further incentives around highly skilled innovation activity been undertaken in Ireland, the ownership of the intellectual property created from these activities and also, the availability of financing / investment for Biotech companies. These incentives need to be combined with a more attractive personal tax regime to attract the highly skilled individuals required to support this activity".

Also speaking at the launch Matt Moran, Director of PharmaChemical Ireland said: "Ireland continues to be one of the most favoured global locations for pharma and Biopharma investment. This summit is an excellent platform to showcase Ireland as a centre of excellence in the biopharmaceutical sector. The pharmaceutical and biopharma industry is playing a vital role in Ireland's export-led recovery. The extraordinary flexibility of the Irish economy and labour market has been recognised by international investors and investment into Ireland grew strongly in 2011".

This sector accounts for over 50pc of total Irish exports and employs over 50,000 directly and indirectly. Eight of the top 10 pharmaceuticals companies in the world have major operations in Ireland, benefiting from a favorable tax regime, a highly-skilled workforce, strong compliance record and easy access to European markets.

With an exceptional conference programme and panel of industry speakers rarely found under one roof, this inaugural Summit will provide invaluable insights into important BioPharma projects, case studies, R and D and trends that have the potential to transform the sector.

The speaker agenda lists over 20 experts who are embracing the changes and shaping the future for their businesses. They will share their ideas on how they intend to turn vision to reality and either remain as, or become the leading businesses of tomorrow.

Senior industry leaders speaking include: Mr. Brendan O'Callaghan, VP Operations, Biotech, MSD; Prof. Anita Maguire, Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, UCC, Mr. Paul Duffy, Vice President, External Supply Operating Unit, Pfizer Global Supply; Mr. Michael A. Jarpe, Vice President, Allergan and Dr. Simon Moroney, CEO of MorphoSys AG.