IBA manufactures a cyclotron capable of producing the isotopes used in TEP (tomography by emission of positrons), the key component to the radioactive implants IBt produces.

IBt, which opened its doors in March in Seneffe, is one of only a handful of companies worldwide that has developed radioactive implants for treating prostate cancer. To date, this is the most successful treatment for prostrate cancer.

"Our business is contingent on producing an isotope that can only be made in the specific type of cyclotron," says Carden, chief executive and chairman of IBt. "And there is only one company in the world that manufacturers that cyclotron."

That company -- IBA -- is located in Wallonia.

"If our cyclotron were to go down, it would cost us $50,000 a day in revenues until it is fixed. Every day counts. We cannot afford to be distant from this company," he says.

IBt could have located its business in neighboring France or even Flanders. But Carden and Coniglione chose Wallonia because land costs there are inexpensive. And, as Carden says, "There was enough momentum in biotechnology that we didn't need to look elsewhere but here."

That momentum is largely the result of a working relationship IBt has with the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL) in Wallonia.

"We have three groups working with us at UCL," says Carden. "Two are in chemistry, helping us to produce critical processes to our development, and the third is helping develop new product concepts."

Although Europeans have a history of being adverse to risking private funds to finance fledging companies, IBt is proof this attitude may be changing. The Ministry of the Walloon Region offers a set of grants and support to biotech companies. These include: the Advance Recuperation Loan program, which consists of an interest-free loan that may cover up to 80 percent of the research cost for small and medium size enterprises and 50 percent for large enterprises; subsidies which support strategic studies in technology; and grants for the acquisition of patents and licenses.

The Walloon region also has launched a new program of financial support for universities and spin-off companies filing patents.

Besides seed money available from the Wallonia government, IBt has benefited from the recent creation of two new European stock markets, EASDAQ and Euro-NM, which are dedicated to high-growth companies.

"Half of our Belgian bond offerings sold in three days," says Coniglione.

Market: USA
While IBt will be manufacturing the implants in Wallonia, the company's primary market is the United States. Industry analysts project the U.S. brachytherapy market will mushroom in the next decade.

Shipping the implants to the States from Europe is no problem. Each implant, whose radioactivity lasts 17 days, is about the size of the tip of lead on a pencil.

"We can ship enough in a one-foot cube box valued at $150,000 to $200,000 to treat 200 to 300 patients," says Carden. IBt's strategic plan also calls for developing the European market as well. This medical procedure is just getting started in Europe.

"Again, Wallonia is an excellent location, being in the center of the European Union," says Coniglione. The company continues to explore new processes by utilizing professors and post-doctorate researchers at UCL.

"This university is like Stanford University in that it offers access to very good fundamental research," says Carden. Connected to the university is also St. Luke Hospital where IBt will soon be able to apply its research.

While IBt's employment model calls for hiring 33 people within three years, Carden expects the company will reach that level in two years.

"We expect to hire some of our staff from the university where there is an especially good labor pool," he says.

This type of commercial-university relationship is important to the growth of IBT and Belgium's biotech industry as a whole.

Collaboration is key
The collaborative effort between industry and biotech programs within Wallonia's universities is one of the region's major strengths.

UCL and the University of Liege have particularly been key to the present and future growth of biotechnology in this region.

UCL, a complete university complex with 10 separate faculties in Louvain-la-Neuve in the Walloon Region and Louvain-en-Woluwe in the Brussels Region, offers several strong programs.

Its International Institute of Cellular and Molecular Biology (ICP), for example, is active in organizing technology transfers to companies. Its Science Park next to the Louvain-la-Neuve campus, fosters biotech companies by creating synergies between the university and industry.

The park is home to 85 high-tech companies, employing 3,300 people.

"Some 1,000 research contracts are signed each year with laboratories of the university and firms in the park," says Claire Demain, UCL general director. The university maintains a close relationship with all the firms of the Science Park and offers seed money for fundamental research.

"The goal is to have a role in creating innovations and introducing new technologies to companies," says Dr. Philippe Janssens De Varebeke, a UCL advisor. "We help companies build and have more products worldwide."

Janssens, director of IBA, which happens to be a spin-off company from UCL, has been working for 30 years in the field of cancer. He was instrumental in assisting IBt and has worked closely with American Home Products and Incyte Pharmaceuticals of Palo Alto, Calif. Incyte recently created a Belgian subsidiary at UCL where it will be starting clinical trials at end of this year.

The University of Liege (Ulg), located in the city of Liege and on a site known as Sart-Tilman, is organized into eight faculties with over 50 different courses. At Sart-Tilman, 28 research laboratories are engaged with the most updated applications of biotechnology.

More than 10 biotechnology companies have settled in the Liege area as a result of Ulg. Most are located in the Research Park of Liege, which is associated with the university and operated by the Economic Development Agency of Liege-Belgium (SPI).

Ulg's Interface program, established 10 years ago, melds together collaboration between corporations and scientific units in the university. "Interface has a lot of autonomy compared to American universities," says Laurent Siquet, who heads up the program.

One primary goal of Interface is to allow companies to take advantage of university resources and state-of-the-art equipment such as its Protein Sequencer, Fermentor, X-ray Diffractometer, and Dilutor Dispenser.

Associations, such as BioLiege, also give biotech companies an opportunity to interact with the university.

"We have 15 laboratories from the university and eight companies, seven of which are spin-offs from the university," says Bernard Rentier, vice rector of Ulg. "We have people interested in fermentation, genetic engineering, and diagnostics (human and veterinary)."

Up until 1990, Eurogentec was located on the Ulg campus. The company began with four people as a result of seed money from the university and private capital.

"We now have 110 employees," says Andre Renard, Eurogentec General Manager. Today it occupies a 1,600 square meter facility in the Liege Research Park. In 1997, the privately-held company did $8.5 million in sales.

"We located in the park because we wanted to keep our links with professors, research and equipment there," Renard says. "The student community is doing some of our research."

Biotech Jewels
SmithKline Beecham is regarded as one of Wallonia's biotechnological jewels. Excellent cooperation between Belgian universities and its own research group were driving factors for SmithKline Beecham Biological (SB Bio) becoming the first in the world to develop, manufacture and market a recombinant DNA vaccine against hepatitis B.

SB Bio is also involved with the Belgian BioIndustries Association, a non-profit group that helps promote Belgian biotech development.

"Our Biotech Center, located in Rixensart, is partly the outcome of SB Bio's successful collaboration with Belgian universities and local research organizations," says Dr. Pierre Crooy, SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals.

Today SB Bio is a world leader in vaccine research and production.

"We are a completely integrated company," adds Crooy. "We decide our own research, manufacturing and marketing."

Located at several sites in Wallonia, SmithKline Beecham is expanding rapidly. Three new buildings, including a manufacturing and R&D site, are opening on its campus in Rixensart in May. A new pilot unit facility for the production of cancer vaccines just opened in the Gembloux-Namur Research Park in Gembloux as well as a new plant in Wavre-Nord.

In 1990, the company employed 2,000 people at the Rixensart site.

"The projection is that we will have 3,000 by the year 2001," he says.

UCB Bioproducts, part of a global pharmaceutical and chemical group, also has a major presence in Wallonia.

Among its flagship products are Zyrtec, an anti-allergic antihistamine, and Lortab, an analgesic for moderately severe pain. The company also manufactures diagnostic kits for detection of antibiotic contamination in food products, especially milk.

This young affiliate started as a joint venture between UCB and the Walloon Region. It is now growing at an annual rate of 25 percent and employs 1,300 people at its location in Braine-I'Alleund.

"We are a fully integrated company from drug discovery to commercialization. Our drugs come from UCB R&D activities," says Dr. Alain Scarso, General Manager of UCB Pharma, UCB-Bioproducts S.A.

Currently, 85 percent of the company's sales are developed to the U.S. market.

"The United States is the main location for development for new potential drugs," he says. "The reason is there are more investors and the capacity for innovation is bigger right now in the United States than Europe and Asia."

The company has been investing in new development and production facilities to meet growing qualitative and quantitative requirements. Scarso explains that UCB Pharma is not structured for its own drug discovery. Its business is to produce clincial studies on behalf of companies.

"Our products are very specialized, so we welcome programs from universities to do the research," he explains.

The company is already working with three universities in Belgium to collaborate on food diagnostic agents.

"We would like to be involved with a potential commercial partner," he says.

Future growth in Wallonia
The Wallonia government hopes to attract more biotech companies, and regards this group as one of its targeted industries.

Marc Vansteenkiste, an attaché with the Ministry of Wallonia Region, is quick to point out that Wallonia is less congested than the Flanders region to the north.

"We have much more open space," says Vansteenkiste.

Plus the biotech industry in Belgium as a whole is not constricted by political movements such as the "Greens," an environmental activist party.

New biotech research parks are also coming on line. The Aeropole in Charleroi, for example, offers office and laboratory space in state-of the-art centers.

One of these centers, Minerve Research Center in Biotechnology, is involved in two major projects: the Institute of Biology and Molecular Medicine, which concentrates on cellular biology, viology, bacteriology, immunology and genetics; and the Good Manufacturing Practice Center, which brings together research teams and their partners in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.

An added benefit is that this new research park is strategically connected to the Charleroi Brussels South Airport and has a unique infrastructure for high speed telecommunications.