Today, the EU Commission unveiled a set of initiatives outlined in its “Communication on Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing,” aimed at boosting biotech & biomanufacturing within the EU.
One of the key messages was that biotechnology can help feed the world. At 21st.BIO we could not agree more. Biosolutions hold tremendous potential to feed the world and produce sustainable materials. Now it is time to unleash it, also in Europe. And we are ready to support this with a mature, world-class industrial technology platform, capable of producing proteins at scale.
Margrethe Vestager, EU Commissioner for Competition and Executive Vice President of the European Commission, stated: “Everywhere across Europe, we are faced with the same challenges: Climate change affects us all. Resource scarcity affects us all. Biotechnology can contribute to solving these challenges. Biotech also largely supports Europe’s economy and contribute to our competitiveness, with high growth potential and labour productivity. And by reducing the Europe’s dependency on fossil-based input and other sources of raw materials biotech also increase circularity and strengthen our path towards independence of fossil fuels. With today’s proposal we want to create the right environment for this sector to grow and deliver global solutions to societal and environmental problems.”
Among the Commission’s set of actions are:
- Simplified regulatory framework and faster access to market, including launching a study that could lay the foundations for a possible EU Biotech Act.
- Better support for scale-up and ease of navigating regulations.
- Foster a larger market for biotechnology and biomanufacturing.
- Enable fair comparison with fossil-based products.
- Encourage more investments.
We applaud this initiative, which shows the EU is moving in the right direction. And together with our partners at EuropaBio (the European Association for Bioindustries) and the European Biosolutions Coalition, we call for ambition and urgency. Europe should not be left behind in a space where we have world-leading capabilities and technology.
