La guerre, der Kampf

While the European Union and the U.S. prepare to meet in summit this week to create harmony, the tone of the political rhetoric relating to biotech has become something more confrontational. Opening the first conference of the Biotechnology & Finance Forum in Brussels last week, Edith Cresson, European Commissioner for Research & Technology and a former prime minister of France, broadcast a call to arms for European biotech to take on U.S. biotech.

Echoing comments by Jürgen Rüttgers, the German science minister, at the recent European Life Sciences Conference in Amsterdam (see BioCentury, May 4), Cresson wants Europe to play catch up with the U.S...