Arno Vermeulen & Liana Steeghs The Netherlands has some of the world’s most productive lifescience clusters in the world. Immuno Valley, a consortium of 27 organisations from private sector, government, education and research backgrounds, is a fertile ground for cutting edge R&D and manufacturing focusing on human and animal health, especially infectious diseases. Team Connect spoke with Arno Vermeulen and Liana Steeghs, the management team of Immuno Valley about how the Indian lifesciences sector can benefit from the Dutch expertise.
When and why was Immuno Valley set up?
Arno: Emerging infectious diseases are a threat. Not just in countries like India, but even Western Europe is equally at risk. We can face this challenge better if we have early warning systems and good collaborations with credible partners who excel in their area of work. With the premise of connecting human and animal health, Immuno Valley was set up as a spinoff of Utrecht University, which has one of the largest research facilities in infectious diseases and the only veterinary faculty in the Netherlands. Located at the centre of the Netherlands, it is a bottom-up consortium in which public and private sector partners decided to add value by collaborating on fighting human and animal infectious diseases. It started in 2008. The partner organisations agreed that the knowledge infrastructure and the industry in the Netherlands should join hands and team up to find better and faster solutions to the challenges we face in the future in the domain of health, especially infectious diseases.
What are the strengths of the Dutch lifesciences sector, especially in the field of infectious diseases?
Arno: The Dutch have 400 years of experience with infectious diseases. We were a sailing country and our ships brought back goods but also infections from all over the world from trading nations like India, Sri Lanka, Japan and China. The collective memory of the experiences with treating these patients have built a prominent knowledge of infectious diseases and led to the development of vaccines to prevent them. A lot of R&D that has gone into the development of vaccines originated in the Netherlands and several companies based here now manufacture vaccines. We also have a strong veterinary vaccine industry, presently no. 1 in the world.
Is Immuno Valley oriented toward foreign companies setting up in Utrecht?
Arno: Many multinational partners have joined Immuno Valley. Big names like Glaxo Smithkline (GSK), Eli Lilly Elanco, Pfizer, Intervet International (part of Merck) and Sanofi Avenis, among others, are here. We also have several small biotechnology companies that are very specialised and excel in their technology. Some international companies have come in through the merger and acquisition (M&A) route. For example, Swiss diagnostics company Prionics merged with Dutch Cedi Diagnostics BV to operate as Prionics Lelystad BV. Our consortium partners are largely focused on R&D.
On the other hand, some companies started and nurtured in the Netherlands have gone international too. One of the success stories we are proud of is Crucell, which started as a Utrecht spin-off and is now a major international producer of vaccines, listed on the major stock markets.
How can India benefit from a concept such as Immuno Valley?
Arno: I went to Shanghai recently and had the opportunity to interact with many Chinese companies. Like India, I see a transition from production to innovation and R&D. Companies are at a stage where they need to bring technology and quality into production systems. International standards have to be met. Our knowledge infrastructure can become the technological partner for those industries. Students from Indian universities may join graduate or PhD programmes with Dutch universities and so exchange experience and knowledge. Liana: Indian companies can partner with Immuno Valley where there is a tradition of collaboration and knowledge sharing. For example, the Netherlands Vaccine Institute (NVI) is a consortium partner that regularly collaborates with partners in other countries to exchange their technology. In fact, in 2007 the Serum Institute of India got a license to produce a vaccine against HiB (Haemophilus influenzae Type B) from the Indian government. The vaccine was developed using technology transferred from the NVI. This was the first time that a developing country was able to develop and get a license for a HiB vaccine through joint development and technology transfer. This could set a precedent for other such collaborative programs. In fact, the NVI is one of the few producers of inactivated polio vaccine (IPV), which is a safer polio vaccine and slated to completely replace the oral polio vaccine. NVI is supplying bulk material for IPV to Indian companies and has been asked by the WHO to develop the safer Sabine-IPV vaccine process for technology transfer. Once developed, it will highly benefit India, where the last few remaining cases of polio in the world are still to be found.
India struggles to cope with the onslaught of infectious diseases on a large population where access to healthcare is not uniform across the nation. Do you see Indo-Dutch collaborations helping India to tackle the ground realities?
Arno: We, in the Netherlands, should realise that India is a large market and is at the edge of becoming a hi-tech one. India should join forces with partners to develop its own products and meet Indian needs. For example, Sanquin, one of our consortium members has blood transfusion and blood bank know-how that could be important for similar institutes in India. Further, Indian companies should also look at exports in specific niche areas.
Immuno Valley has developed different tools, such as a proprietary database of all Dutch scientists in the field of infectious diseases. These tools can be very helpful in setting up partner programmes with Indian scientists, companies and universities.
Immuno Valley is also interested in connecting networking activities with similar organisations in Asia. We look forward to being in contact with the Indian scientific sector and allied businesses to explore further possibilities for collaboration in this important field that connects the entire world.
Arno Vermeulen & Liana Steeghs
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