Swiss Biotech Report 2005
Swiss Biotech Report 2005
Swiss Biotech Report 2005
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18 THE MOTOR OF ECONOMIC...<br />
HENRI B. MEIER The Chairman of the Board of<br />
HBM BioVentures has a clear opinion on the <strong>Swiss</strong><br />
biotech industry. There are plenty of innovative<br />
ideas, products and start-ups, but a lack of earlystage<br />
venture capital institutions.<br />
Do young biotech companies nowadays still have a<br />
chance to find investors<br />
Henri B. Meier: In Continental Europe young biotech<br />
companies are going through an extraordinary hard<br />
time – because only a few venture capital institutions<br />
exist there that are specialised in early-stage<br />
biotech. Europe’s traditional banks provide only<br />
credits and loans, not equity capital. The situation in<br />
the Anglo-Saxon countries is rather different: There,<br />
new finance vehicles for channeling venture capital<br />
were created to finance innovation and growth.<br />
What are the criteria for you to invest in a biotech<br />
company<br />
Henri B. Meier: The most important criteria are the<br />
science-based technology, the quality of the lead<br />
compound or, in medical technology, the instrument,<br />
the quality of the patent, the management and the<br />
business plan. The question, whether there are other<br />
competitors that work in the same field – possibly<br />
with further-advanced projects – is also of great<br />
importance and requires a worldwide network.<br />
There is no lack of competitors and biotech is an<br />
extremely dynamic market. How do you find the<br />
famous needle in the haystack which would reward<br />
investment<br />
Henri B. Meier: With the explosion of knowledge, the<br />
biotech industry indeed belongs to the most dynamic<br />
markets. The relationship between good and bad<br />
projects, however, is much better than the one<br />
between the needle and the haystack,.<br />
Up to now well over 1000 projects were presented to<br />
HBM BioVentures and we invested in about 2 to 3%<br />
of them. It is an enormous effort to evaluate those<br />
projects and it requires tough selection criteria. HBM<br />
BioVentures enjoys the privilege of being the leader<br />
and having the largest number of specialists in its<br />
field in Europe. But at the end of the day also the<br />
best projects are based on expectations regarding<br />
developments in the future. And because nobody<br />
knows the future, the judgment is always based on a<br />
mixture of analysis based on the past and intuition<br />
which anticipates the future.<br />
<strong>Biotech</strong> markets are consolidating. What is the role<br />
of the <strong>Swiss</strong> biotech industry in this process<br />
Henri B. Meier: With 133 core biotech companies,<br />
Switzerland has the highest number of biotech com-
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