PARIS - The second National Congress of the French biotechnology industry association, France Biotech, will take place in Toulouse on Oct. 4 and will have as its theme "The Creation of Value."

The conference in southwestern France will be divided into two parts, with the morning session devoted to creating value in France and the afternoon session to creating value in Europe and North America. They will be chaired, respectively, by Emile Loria, chairman of Toulouse-based Biovector Therapeutics, and Pascal Brandys, chairman of Genset S.A. and president of France Biotech.

Both Loria and Brandys will speak during the first session, as will the top executives of Transghne, NiCox, Entomed and Hybrigenics. The international session will be addressed by representatives from Peptide Therapeutics (UK), BioChem Pharma (Canada), MediGene (Germany) and Modex (Switzerland). It will end with a roundtable on the role of financial analysts, in which nine French, American, British and German analysts have been invited to take part.

The choice of Toulouse as the location "is a mark of our desire to demonstrate the important role played by the regions in the biotechnology industries in France and abroad," Brandys said. "There are numerous biotech poles in France. They make their individual contributions to the critical mass being built up in this industry that is creating jobs and value for the next millennium."

France Biotech was created in 1997. Since then the number of member companies has swelled from its original 12 founders to more than 40.