How the #EMA will stimulate the biotech community

I asked Pavol what he thought were the strengths of the bid by Bratislava to host the EMA?

Slovakia has already shown that the international investments in the car industry helped the country to become a world leader in car production. We are capable to repeat this success story in the biotech sector if similar investments follow the EMA to come to Slovakia. We have great infrastructure to host and facilitate the EMA, top research universities, motivated young scientists and a very strong start-up eco system. I am confident that the EMA employees and their families will relocate smoothly to a happy life in a city with great history and art, excellent international and domestic food, and creative and hospitable people. Locating the EMA in pro-EU Bratislava would be a symbol that Central and Eastern European countries are treated equally.

How are Slovakia and Bratislava regarded professionally by the international scientific community?

Hosting the EMA presents an opportunity for Slovakia to build a new, modern and prestigious scientific community, and a stimulating environment for scientists. This new community is important if Slovakia is to realise its ambition to build a new biotech industry, which is a strategic priority for our country.

EFPIA has voiced concern that patient access in Europe to safe and effective medicines should not be damaged in the process of relocating the EMA to a new host city. How will Bratislava meet this challenge if the Agency is awarded to Slovakia?

The media has commented that the staff churn for EMA scientific rapporteurs coming from the UK could be one the biggest challenges in the process of relocating the EMA to Bratislava. But, Bratislava is exactly in the heart of Europe sharing borders with Austria and Hungary, with good air, rail and river transport connections. This problem is perhaps overstated. I have relocated to Bratislava myself after 20 years living abroad and I am thrilled how this city has changed and transformed into a great international melting pot with many opportunities. In addition, in this communications age, some EMA scientific rapporteurs can live wherever they wish in EU and communicate with each other by modern communications channels.

You have considerable experience of the Food and Drug Agency (FDA) in the USA and its relationship with academia and with the pharmaceutical industry. What do you think the potential impact of moving the EMA to Slovakia would be, and what could this mean for the diversification of the Slovakian economy and employment opportunities in industry and in academia in Central and Eastern Europe?

The FDA has transformed Maryland, Virginia and the Washington DC area into one of the most prominent biotech hubs on the East Coast and has tremendously influenced academia. It has attracted more than 300 biotech companies, including the biggest biopharma (AstraZeneca and Merck, for example) and biotech (Agilent, Qiagen, PerkinElmer and ThermoFisher). It has helped to create a great environment for new biotech start-ups, of which some have already become very successful companies. I forecast that the same can happen to Slovakia and the Visegrad region. This will help to diversify the Slovakian industry and economy, which is heavily reliant on the car industry.

This will help to create new employment opportunities in biotech and academia, which will slow down the exodus of Slovak scientists. We need opportunities for our best people at home, not only to create new companies with high added value, but also to positively influence and shape our society. Slovakia is at the cross-roads. We managed to change from a heavy industry/metallurgy based economy to a top engineering/electronics/car manufacturing economy with a high level of services. Now we are actively trying to move further – to more service/R&D/tech based economy. Hosting the EMA can be an important catalyst in this process of transformation.

Can you please explain how locating the EMA in Bratislava might stimulate innovation in biomedical research and the creation of new startup companies in life sciences in the region?

The best innovations in science are always created in the strongest scientific communities. The EMA, with its hundreds of high-quality professionals and thousands of visiting experts, will significantly influence the growth of strong scientific eco-system in Slovakia, which will give important opportunities for new start-ups in life sciences. At the same time the EMA will attract big pharma companies to set up branches to be close to the EMA headquarters, as happened in the USA with the FDA. The critical mass of this scientific community will in turn stimulate the start-ups which will benefit from the presence of the big companies. Biotech start-ups are very important to drive innovations in life sciences and are often faster to transform biotechnologies to applications in modern healthcare than bigger companies. Therefore, these start-ups are very important for modernisation of our biotech research and ultimately healthcare.

What is your opinion about the ease of developing start-up businesses in Slovakia?

You can assess this easily by just looking at Slovakian Start-up Awards that are presented every year to start-ups and new creative ideas.  But, it is still not easy to develop a biotech start-up without the infrastructure of a strong scientific environment and successfully running incubators and accelerators. I believe hosting the EMA can significantly change this situation. The community accompanying the EMA may significantly impact the growth of the biotech start-up ecosystem and will attract scientists to come to Bratislava. Bratislava hosting the EMA will create new opportunities in the life-science and start-up community that will attract scientists working internationally to consider relocating to Bratislava, including our own home grown talent.

What would your advice be to any young scientist thinking of making a career move to Bratislava?

Don’t hesitate to take the step to build your career in Bratislava with creative, honest and hospitable people. It is a multi-cultural, multi-lingual welcoming community.