The Zambon Group launches Z-Cube
The Zambon Group has recently presented Z-Cube, the new venture catalyst in the Biotech/pharma field. Purpose: to transform the ground-breaking projects and ideas of researchers into working realities, providing youngsters with funds and above all with the tutoring and expertise needed to develop their ideas, to create a precise and detailed business plan, to determine competitive advantages, analyse the market, become acquainted with the reference standards and subsequently set up new and independent biotechnological/pharmaceutical companies in Europe. ,Z-Cube saw the light as a satellite entity of Zambon and is all set to flank the pharmaceutical group in its difficult and costly R&D activities. Every year, Z-Cube will support 10 projects with 100,000 euro each for six consecutive years, for a total of 60 selected projects. At the end of the six years of activity, the launch is expected of over 20 new companies-projects. The new organisation will make it possible to attract external researchers from all over Europe, especially from universities, who will be financed by Zambon and financial partners first of all in developing a feasibility plan and then in builiding real and true scientific and clinical projects. Zambon will maintain a number of rights of industrial exploitation of the results of such development. Any pharmaceutical company, but especially those of medium size like ours, must find new ways of performing research. Traditional methods are becoming unsustainable in terms of costs, but above all they are not producing the necessary results. Z-Cube is the last piece of the innovative R&D approach begun by Zambon in 1999 and which relies on a network of external collaborators in some of the world's most advanced research centres and companies explained Roberto Rettani, Managing Director of the Group during the course of the presentation. The commitment of the Zambon group, notwithstanding the heavy investment already made in pharmaceutical R&D, which has increased by 33% over the last two years accounting for around 10% of company turnover, continues to grow. And it is growing in a sector, that of research and development, which in Italy is passing through a weak period. Pharmaceutical R&D operators in Italy are 4,500 compared to the over 15,000 of France or nearly 21,000 in the UK. A positive note however is represented by the fact that the commitment is increasing of companies with Italian capital and Z-Cube quite rightfully plays a role in this turnabout. The possibility of actually boosting research in Italy was further stressed by Prof. Cesare Sirtori, Pharmacologist of Milan University, who explained how in actual fact, at present, it is the smaller research companies which are providing major breakthroughs to the large multinational concerns. The Z-cube" scientific committee is chaired by Professor Renato Dulbecco, Nobel laureate for medicine, who, at the presentation meeting, stated, "Zambon is providing young university researchers with an incredible chance precisely at a time when, as a result of its excesses, the world of the stock exchange does not appear to be interested in innovation and research. To speak of young people of course naturally means emphasising the link between private companies and Universities. A clear example of this is the cooperation established between Zambon and Genoa University, detailed during the course of the encounter by Professor Silvio De Flora who works with the US National Cancer Institute and at the university of the Ligurian capital. Together with Genoa University, Zambon has begun a structural relationship, sustaining a position of full-time associate researcher The research and development of a new drug is becoming an increasingly more complex and articulated process in which the university medical and clinical world plays a crucial role. It is not merely a question of not losing the molecular innovation game once and for all, but also of not losing the ability to fully perform the long stages of clinical experimentation. Last year, the Zambon group was among the very few pharmaceutical companies with Phase II studies (the intermediate clinical test phase) under way in Italy - concluded Roberto Rettani - the more our Country becomes a mere pharmaceutical "market", the poorer becomes not only our industry, but also our clinical development capacity.