End-of-show report for BIOTECHNICA 2011
– Double-digit increases in exhibitor and visitor participation
– Strong international appeal confirms BIOTECHNICA's flagship role
– Featured themes right on target
Hannover, Germany. The organizers of BIOTECHNICA 2011, Europe’s leading trade fair and congress for biotechnology and the life sciences, declared the event a solid success as it drew to a close on October 13. “The themes featured at this year’s BIOTECHNICA were right on target, and the show demonstrated impressive growth in terms of both exhibitor and attendance figures. This BIOTECHNICA has clearly succeeded in highlighting the key importance of biotechnology in our daily lives and the world of commerce,” commented Dr. Andreas Gruchow, Managing Board member at Deutsche Messe AG, Hannover at the end of the three-day event.
618 exhibitors from 28 different countries (up 24 percent over the previous year) were in Hannover from 11 to 13 October to showcase a rich array of biotech innovations and their uses in medical, food manufacturing and industrial applications as well as environmentally-friendly production techniques. Laboratory equipment, bioreactors and a wide variety of services and IT solutions for the biotech and pharmaceutical industries figured prominently among the show’s displays. The list of top exhibiting nations was headed up by Switzerland, followed by France, the United Kingdom, the USA and the Netherlands. Iran and Korea were on hand with large national pavilions.
BIOTECHNICA 2011 (11 to13 October) Final Press Conference, Dr. Andreas Gruchow, Member of the board, Deutschen Messe AG, Matthias Dornheim, Marketing Manager Life Sciences, VWR International GmbH, Darmstadt, Dr. Thomas Drescher, CIO DASGIP AG, Jülich, Prof. Dr. rer. Nat. Lutz Fischer, Univ. Hochheim, Hans-Jürgen Oberdiek, Sales Marketing Manager, Carl Zeiss Microlmaging, Jena.
The keynote themes at this year’s BIOTECHNICA were BioServices, food biotechnology and industrial biotechnology. “The vast array of new developments in these areas underscored the biotech industry’s undiminished innovative power,” Gruchow remarked. New approaches to testing and ensuring food quality and safety were in great demand. Strong interest was also shown in ways of using biotechnology to replace chemical and industrial production processes with more environment-friendly and sustainable alternatives. The new “BioServices” marketplace was extremely well received. BioServices gives biotech and pharmaceutical suppliers a direct line to potential service providers for the development and production of new materials.
The prime objectives for exhibitors at BIOTECHNICA 2011 were to generate new business and stay in touch with their customer base. “As a global biotech industry supplier based in the German state of Lower Saxony, we consider BIOTECHNICA to be an absolute must. This is our opportunity to meet up with customers and cooperation partners from the region while also seeing leads from across Germany and Europe,” commented Dr. Wolfgang Asche, Product Manager of Fermentation Technologies at Sartorius Stedim Biotech GmbH, Göttingen.
Rise in foreign attendance
The outcome of BIOTECHNICA 2011 was also positive in terms of visitor turnout. The three-day event attracted a total of 11,000 visitors – up about 15 percent over 2010. “Double-digit growth in both exhibitors and visitors impressively confirms BIOTECHNICA’s reputation as the flagship fair for the European biotech and life sciences sector,” remarked Gruchow.
Around a quarter of the show’s visitors were from abroad, with particularly more coming from European countries in particular. The top visitor nations were the United Kingdom, Poland, Austria, France and the Netherlands. Attendance from Italy, Sweden and Russia was also on the rise.
Almost half of this year’s visitors stated having come to BIOTECHNICA in order to gather inspiration for product development, as compared with just 12 percent who had indicated this the year before. 2011 visitors assigned a significantly higher priority to finding possible cooperation partners and scanning the market for innovations. Visitors were largely interested in technology and services, biotech devices, laboratory equipment and applications in the pharmaceutical and medical sectors.
Exhibitors praised the professional caliber and decision-making authority of the show’s attendees. One out of every three visitors was from the ranks of top management. As a further reflection of this trend, this year’s BIOTECHNICA attracted more owner-operators and specialists from large enterprises than in the past.
Winning mix of exhibition and congress
Conferences, forums and workshops featuring over 500 international speakers provided the ideal complement to the exhibition program. Themes ranged from biomedicine to bioinformatics and food safety. “We exhibit at BIOTECHNICA in order to generate leads and follow-up orders. We especially benefit from the many customers who head to our stand for a closer look at our products right after attending on-site conferences,” explained Erik Jans, Business Development Manager Europe at MaxCyte from Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA.
Pivotal networking hub for the science and business communities
One of the key objectives of BIOTECHNICA is to encourage networking and knowledge transfer among the scientific and business communities. In line with this goal, several collaborative research products were presented at the biotech products forum by Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Some 120 scientists and researchers used the forum to impress a wide audience with the fruits of their labors. The product and enterprise presentations given by BIOTECHNICA exhibitors at the BIOTECHNICA INNOVATION FORUM were particularly well attended.
The Bio@venture Conference gave start-up business operators an opportunity to showcase their innovations to potential venture capital providers. The “jobvector career day” also met with a very favorable response. Corporations such as BASF and Olympus Europe were on hand in order to convey their virtues to scores of potential candidates.
The EUROPEAN BIOTECHNICA AWARD was ceremoniously presented on the evening of the first day of BIOTECHNICA. This year’s prize was targeted at European biotech and life science organizations with outstanding track records of fostering tech transfer between research science and industry. The winner was Unitectra – a Swiss technology transfer organization which assists scientists from the universities of Basel, Bern and Zurich in taking their research findings to market. More than 1,300 invited guests from the research, business and political communities attended the prize-giving ceremony.
The next BIOTECHNICA will be staged from 8 to 10 October 2013.
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