COBIOE project consortium opens an interconnection platform for the European biomanufacturing sector

Launched officially in March 2023, the COBIOE project aims to build a shared and inclusive strategy for strengthening and interconnecting Europe’s healthcare biomanufacturing sector. A part of the Horizon Europe program’s European Innovation Ecosystems theme and coordinated by Genopole, the 24-month project is initiating the first step of its Europe-wide interconnection platform for biomanufacturing professionals.

The European project COBIOE (growing COnnection for BIOEcosystems) is launching the first step of the project’s interconnection platform for Europe’s health biomanufacturing sector.

The manufacture of medications arising from life sciences and technologies creates a potential for safe, reliable and efficacious treatments for numerous pathologies such as cancers, chronic illnesses and rare diseases, while also greatly reducing the environmental impact of drug production.

The COBIOE project seeks to create a European dynamic aimed at strengthening the development of innovative drugs and biotherapies, increasing production capacities for them and accelerating their commercialization. In so doing, it furthermore hoped to guarantee European sovereignty for biomanufacturing. COBIOE aligns with the ambition of the EU’s Important Projects of CommonEuropean Interest (IPCEI) on Health, a large effort also looking to structure the sector across Europe.

A first step completed toward a digital community platform for the European biomanufacturing sector

An objective of COBIOE’s interconnection platform is to map the entirety of European actors in biomanufacturing. The first phase being active as of January 2024, sector actors are invited to join the platform, place themselves within the biomanufacturing value chain (training, R&D, industrialization of processes or production) and thus make themselves visible to potential partners. The COBIOE project’s goal is to cover 90% of European actors in biomanufacturing. Additionally, those registered on the platform will benefit from an effective and tailorable economic monitoring system providing information on the latest biomanufacturing news and tendencies in their specific fields of interest.

A second phase, currently being developed, will provide a “community” function to enable exchanges between the actors, participation in work groups and the initiation of novel partnerships.

Building a shared European strategy for biomanufacturing

To ensure European sovereignty in access to innovative treatments, COBIOE intends to contribute to overcoming the numerous challenges in biomanufacturing. Easing partnerships among the sector’s actors to address such needs as increasing bioproduction capacities in Europe, accelerating R&D or providing workforce training for new competencies will also heighten the sector’s visibility among public and private investors.

COBIOE is made possible by the participation of pioneering health innovation clusters and networks representing all corners of Europe:

• Genopole, France’s leading biocluster in genetics research and biotechnologies for health and the environment, coordinator of the project,
• CEBR, a European network of regional clusters and ecosystems in life sciences,
• EIT Health France, a community of knowledge and innovation established by the European Institute of Innovation & Technology,
• Health Cluster Portugal, an association of life sciences clusters in the Portuguese Republic,
• ScanBalt, a meta cluster of health institutions and actors in the Baltic Sea Region.

 About COBIOE

COBIOE (growing COnnection for BIO Ecosystems) is a project retained by Horizon Europe’s European Innovation Ecosystems initiative to strengthen the health biomanufacturing sector in Europe. It aims first to construct a shared European strategy and ultimately to contribute to the development of innovative drugs and biotherapies, strengthen production capacities for them accelerate their commercialization, and, in so doing, guarantee European sovereignty in health biomanufacturing. To reach its objectives, COBIOE focuses on the creation of an interactive network of innovation actors and ecosystems covering the sector’s entire value chain: training, R&D industrialization of processes, production and on to post-commercialization (regulation, health systems, durability, patient access, etc.).

To learn more: https://www.cobioe.eu