(Repeats story published early on Thursday)
By Michael Kahn
BRNO, Czech Republic, Sept 4 (Reuters) - Just a few steps
from the monastery where Gregor Mendel pioneered the field of
genetics some 150 years ago, Czech officials hope to nurture
their own biotech revolution.
The plan is to turn Brno, a 13th-century city that went the
way of manufacturing under communism, into a modern biotech hub
and attract firms eager to tap into a skilled work force, even
as a strong currency drives up costs and wages.
"We are trying to connect industry, education and
infrastructure to make it easier for companies to come here to
create an environment that suits biotech companies best,"
Brno's mayor Roman Onderka told Reuters.
The Czech Republic now hosts around 60 biotech firms, mainly
near Brno and the capital of Prague.
But the key for Brno -- the country's second biggest city --
is a partnership with the U.S. Mayo Clinic, the research centre
renowned for treating rare medical cases and famous patients
including former U.S. President George H.W. Bush.
Announced in 2006, it will help the country play on historic
strengths in medicine and research and hopefully become a
regional force for more than just cheap labour, said Tomas
Sedlacek, chief macroeconomic strategist at Czech bank CSOB.
Establishing the Czech Republic as a research hub could keep
the economy humming when wages rise enough to convince low-cost
manufacturers settled here to move jobs elsewhere, said
Sedlacek, a former government adviser.
"The government was pinning its hopes on this partnership,"
he said. "It would be wonderful if the Czech Republic could
become a clinical research centre or something like the hospital
of Europe."
Over the last decade, the Czech crown has been one of the
world's best performing currencies, fuelled by economic growth
of around 5 percent a year and investors' expectations that
returns on Czech investments will catch up with those in richer
neighbouring countries.
That is making it more expensive to do business in the
country. But Alexandra Rudysarova, chief executive of
CzechInvest, which promotes investment, argued Brno's biotech
push shows the nation offers far more than just low-cost labour.
"We strive to lure investments into sectors such as biotech
that provide high added-value and where investors are far less
tempted to relocate to cheap countries east of our borders," she
said in an e-mail.
COMPETITION
The venture in Brno, about halfway between Prague and
Vienna, marks the first time the Mayo Clinic has looked abroad
and is one of four potential new research centres for the city.
Virend Somers, international director and a researcher at
the Mayo Clinic, said Brno offers a pool of expertise.
"The fact it is very much a university town is so important
to make a venture like this successful to help drive
creativity," he said. "We had also been very impressed by the
technical expertise of the Brno physicians and engineers we met
on earlier collaborations."
The government plans to invest some $500 million to support
the four potential projects -- with some money also coming from
the European Union -- as the city seeks to compete directly with
long-established biotech hubs in California and burgeoning ones
across Asia, all looking to tap a fast-growing industry.
Global biotech sales grew by 12.5 pct in 2007 to more than
$55 billion, double the 6.4 percent pace seen in the worldwide
pharmaceutical market, according to market research company IMS
Health.
The plan for Brno also includes a "Medipark" life science
campus at Masaryk University, a regional EU centre focusing on
biotech, and an electron accelerator to aid drug development.
Tax breaks, lower wages, good transportation links
connecting eastern and western Europe and a large student
population that provides a skilled, English-speaking workforce
have long attracted technology companies such as IBM, Honeywell
and Siemens to Brno.
Ten years ago, biotechnology was virtually non-existent in
eastern and central Europe, but skilled workforces and
relatively low costs helped incubate the industry in countries
like the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.
FROM PEAS TO PATENTS
The fledgling International Clinical Research Centre is
located near the 14th-century abbey where Mendel's experiments
with plants started the gene revolution that gave the world
biotech drugs and genetically modified crops.
It was there that the German-speaking Augustinian monk
worked out the basic laws of inheritance by painstakingly
cross-breeding thousands of pea plants.
Other scientific leaders associated with the city include
Ernst Mach -- whose work resulted in the Mach numbers used to
gauge supersonic speed -- and Viktor Kaplan, inventor of the
Kaplan water turbine.
The new International Clinical Research Centre will be one
of the EU's largest biotech and medical research projects and
will showcase new projects aimed at luring researchers and
biotech companies, officials say.
"There aren't many centres in the world that offer the
combination of basic science to preclinical research to
development of drugs, devices and technologies," said Dr. Tomas
Kara, the centre's chief, who is also a researcher at the Mayo
Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
When it gets fully up and running in 2010, the facility will
provide the tools and training to help scientists from around
the world more quickly turn their ideas in the lab into drugs
and technologies people can use, Kara said.
Current projects at the clinic, which will focus mainly on
heart disease, neurosciences and oncology, include a computer
program to prescribe drugs based on a person's genetic profile.
So far researchers from the Mayo clinic and Brno have
published 14 papers and won three U.S. patents for medical
devices, including one to better monitor the relationship
between the brain and heart.
A primary goal is developing new technologies like these
and conducting independent medical research -- rather than drug
development -- and providing resources for scientists to conduct
their studies in Brno and then return to their home country,
Kara said.
"It will work on the same concept as the international
space station, which means adjusting the centre based on the
needs of each project," said Kara. "We want to bring the best
scientists in the world to one place. We hope that one day Brno
could be the Silicon Valley of medicine and biotechnology."
(Editing by Maggie Fox, Michael Winfrey and Sara Ledwith)
