WIESBADEN, Germany ¿ Representatives of 17 Russian research institutions and 29 German and Austrian universities and companies met last week to attend a German-Russian biotechnology workshop here. The Russian scientists presented ongoing projects and new project ideas for potential collaborators in Germany and other European countries.

The partnering event was connected to the 17th DECHEMA Annual Meeting of Biotechnologists in Wiesbaden, and jointly held by the International Centre for Science and Technology (ISTC), of Moscow, and the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (Bundesministerium f|r Bildung und Forschung [ BMBF]).

Initiated by the governments of the U.S., the European Union, Japan, and Russia, ISTC was established in November 1992 as a non-profit program to provide peaceful research opportunities to weapons scientists and engineers of the former Soviet Union. Meanwhile, several other countries, including five former member states of the Soviet Union, have signed the ISTC agreement.

The ISTC solicits scientific project proposals from Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) institutes and provides funding, as well as logistic support, to project teams. These teams develop and execute their projects with foreign collaborating institutions and companies. The center also provides grants and support for travel, business and management training, seminars and patents. All funds are paid directly to scientists.

¿Any commercial or scientific organization from one of the ISTC parties may request assistance from us in locating a CIS institute with particular scientific or technical expertise,¿ Dieter Nietzold, senior project manager of ISTC, of Moscow, told BioWorld International. Two options of participation in research and development projects were possible, he explained.

¿Either the collaborator participates on the basis of mutual interest and a good will agreement with a CIS project team, or a partner funds the project on the base of a legally binding trilateral agreement between the CIS recipient, the foreign partner, and the ISTC,¿ he said.

Using the first model, a collaborator gets in touch with high-level and highly skilled CIS scientists and their institutions to find a partner for research and development, and a possible future commercialization of the results. ¿As the collaborator has no obligation for financial contribution to the project, intellectual property rights belong to the CIS institute,¿ Nietzold explained. ¿However, the foreign partner is granted an exclusive, irrevocable and royalty-free license for commercial purposes [in] his home territory.¿

The second model lets the partner benefit from the ISTC¿s project management infrastructure, as well as from the financial privileges of the ISTC. ¿In the case of 100 percent financing by the partner, he gets the right to exclusive participation in the project,¿ Nietzold said. ¿Intellectual property rights have to be negotiated on a case-by-case basis.¿

As of April 1999, nearly 300 project proposals related to biotechnology and life sciences have been submitted to the ISTC secretariat; 198 of these projects have been considered by funding parties, and 102 have been approved for funding. About two dozen partners from various countries have joined biotechnology projects so far, and the amount of allocated funds for biotechnology projects exceeds US$20 million this year.

Tatiana Gremyakova, senior project manager of ISTC, said statistics ¿prove that biotechnology is an actively expanding technical area within our activity.¿ Projects cover diagnosis, as well as the development of new drugs and vaccines, and the production of immunomodulators.

Many facilities produce vaccines, vectors, and recombinant proteins under Good Manufacturing Practice standards, and have already been granted approval of their products in foreign countries; costs are 3 to 4 times less than U.S. or European prices.

Among the new and expanding biotechnology areas are biosensors, delivery systems, and new drugs and vaccines with targeted action. n