Country Focus
Biotechnology in France
The biotech sector in France faces something of a paradox. On the one hand, the French research landscape has been in a state of upheaval for some years. New advancement programs and funding structures have been established and new clusters have formed. On the other hand, there is still a striking shortage of money and the medium-sized sector is barely finding the money to advance the development of their active substances. On a legal level, only research on human embryonic stem cells has so far come under authoritative direction. A genetic engineering law is still pending and is likely to be passed in 2006 whereas the ‘Pacte pour la Recherche’ (research pact) came into effect in april this year.
High Tech Founder Competition
In 1999 the Ministry of Research held the ‘Concours national d'aide à la création d'entreprises de technologies innovantes’ competition. Within the framework of this program, so far 700 enterprises have received help in starting up, of which 87 per cent are still in business. In 2005, 178 new enterprises were supported. The financial assistance is given as start-up financing and can reach up to 450,000 euro, with the annual budget of the competition designated at 30 million euro. Biotechnology represents only one of the subject areas which can apply for this support, representing 24 % of the selected enterprises in 2005, which makes it the largest individual field, after computer science (see table 1). Just over half of the founded companies were begun by scientists working in public research establishments (table 2).
Table 1: Research areas of the competition winners 2005
| Research area | percentage of competition winners |
| Informatics | 27 % |
| Biotechnology and Pharma | 24 % |
| Elektronics und Telecommunication | 19 % |
| Chemistry und Materials | 14,5 % |
| System Engineering | 9 % |
| Mechanics and Metal Processing | 6,5 % |
Source: Palmarès 2005, 7. High Tech Founder Competition (Ministry of Research)
Table 2: Research institutes of the competition winners 2005
| Research inistute | Number of winning projects |
| Universitiy | 33 |
| CNRS | 21 |
| other public research institutes | 9 |
| CEA | 7 |
| INRA | 3 |
| Institut Curie | 3 |
| Institut Pasteur | 1 |
| CNES | 1 |
Source: Palmarès 2005, 7. High Tech Founder Competition (Ministry of Research)