Brightlands Chemelot Campus: Breathtaking innovation, heart-beating tradition

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1 Brightlands Chemelot Campus: Breathtaking innovation, heart-beating tradition By Kurt Gielen ; Tel ) Most of our experiences have one thing in common. They are almost always linked to specific places, sometimes very unique ones, all around the globe. If you like gambling, you can do it everywhere, even online. However, when it comes to gambling, deep in your heart you know you have to go to the Strip at Las Vegas at least once. Everything else is secondary. If you are into shopping, you are most probably well aware of the never-ending possibilities of 5th Avenue in New York City. If you are into luxury and elegance, the Champs-Élysées in Paris is certainly hard to miss. If your heart beats for finance, though, Wall Street is your capital street. But where is the action, where are things happening, where do you really need to go if you are a Biomedical Materials researcher? Where do you travel when knowledge is your capital and your research needs a sustainable ecosystem to turn your ideas into innovation and manufacturing? What if you are all about health and regenerative medicine? Is there such a thing like Regeneration Street? Actually, there is. Regeneration Street: GMP Manufacturing Capacity on a need basis Although young in its history, Regeneration Street at the Brightlands Chemelot Campus is a vivid example of knowledge crossing borders in Europe. Regeneration Street is an area of 48,000m 2 (or nearly 520,000 square feet) completely focused on world leading research, development, manufacturing and innovation in biomedical materials and regenerative medicine. In order to accommodate growing companies in the fields of Biomaterials, Regenerative Medicine and Tissue Engineering, Brightlands Chemelot Campus is rapidly expanding its available cleanroom and GMP facilities. At the same

2 time, Chemelot is collaborating with companies already established at Chemelot to make available capacity in their facilities accessible to third parties. Figure 1. Regeneration Street nr. 1 The first step in the realization of this grand vision is already finished. It is a fully equipped and serviced state-of-the-art building, simply called Regeneration Street nr. 1. With a total size of 2,400m 2 flexible and scalable cglp and cgmp facilities, it is home to the premier, largest commercial cell therapy manufacturing company in Europe, PharmaCell, and a leading research institute for biomedical materials, Chemelot InSciTe. Brightlands Chemelot Campus has recently expanded this GLP/GMP Manufacturing facility with an additional 650m 2 of flexible GLP and GMP rooms to accommodate new tenants. At Regeneration Street, we emphasize flexible and scalable access to facilities and expertise of scientists and knowledge workers. We are aware of the value of the knowledge capital of our residents and what their needs are. This offers startups and growing companies the needed flexibility at the start of the growth phase they are currently entering when manufacturing demand is growing yet irregular. Through this offer, we assure that state-of-the-art cleanrooms and GMP certified facilities are reserved on a needs basis. In addition, Brightlands Chemelot Campus offers an extensive range of shared capital equipment and trained and certified personnel to accommodate the work in the cleanrooms. We are building a tradition of innovation. We have many of the world s hidden champions that are helping to develop a better world through sustainable health and medical devices, aimed not only to cure but also to prevent and treat. Together we are building the next generation of world champions in Regenerative Medicine and Biomaterials. Since the completion of Regeneration Street nr. 1, we are already working on the next facility in this street which will have a total footprint of 8,000m 2 (over 85,000 square

3 feet). This new building, together with Regeneration Street nr. 1 and the currently available cleanroom facilities, is setting Chemelot up to become the key place for growing companies in the aforementioned areas. Brightlands Chemelot Campus: An effective example of the Triple Helix Lots of things have changed in Europe since the Schengen Agreement was signed in 1985 and implemented in Currently 26 countries and nearly 500 million people are free to create, innovate, share and transfer almost anything across national borders. You see this everywhere. No physical national boundaries anymore, free transit of workers, ideas and knowledge. It shows in other areas of daily life as well, such as sport. If you are a football fan, you have probably seen your team lining up more foreigners than national players. For business, free transit of goods and services enormously helps the economy in a number of regions. For a researcher this should mean you could benefit from open, better ecosystems, which would help you and your team to take an innovative discovery and capitalize its value for society faster. The question is, are you? In Europe, the Triple Helix model has been suggested as an ideal model to bring the most value out of scientific discoveries and innovations. In the Triple Helix model government, academic institutes and private companies work together to one common goal: To create an open economy based on scientific knowledge. This is rooted in the hypothesis that the potential for innovation and economic development lies within the prominent role of the university and research institutes. This knowledge then goes through a hybridization process in which universities, industry and government institutes are involved to result in products and process that have value for the society and thus stimulate our economy. These diverse partners and the hybridization process result in a diversity of crossovers of values from one partner to the other and for the whole. For example, research done by the university will remain open, however it will be linked to industry via clear agreements on intellectual property and profit. By further using the ecosystem of the triple helix, these two partners can create a profit for society.

4 The role of government is to facilitate. Facilitate the often high costs in infrastructure challenges as well as guide the complexity of collaboration between such diverse partners. Governments need to assure that all partners thrive under this one umbrella. Brightlands Chemelot Campus is a prime sustainable example of how the theoretical framework of the Triple Helix can work in reality. Brightlands campuses are in the Dutch province of Limburg, a dynamic, progressive region that shares borders and ties with Germany and Belgium. The international Meuse- Rhine Region comprises the Dutch province of Limburg, the Aachen metropolitan area in Germany, and in Belgium the Liège metropolitan area in Belgium and Belgian Limburg. The region comprises about four million people. The main local languages are Dutch, German, and French, while within the academic, scientific, and commercial communities English is widely spoken as well. But that s only part of the story, because the Meuse-Rhine Region is a central part of the European Backbone, one of the world s highest concentrations of people, industry, and wealth. This urban corridor curves from northwest England, through the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and down to northern Italy. It includes economic drivers, cultural icons, and major population centers. Due to our adoption of Open Innovation and our extensive network and intensive cooperation with our partners in the Meuse-Rhine region and a number of other key locations in Europe and the rest of the world, we define this concept at Brightlands with the slogan, Knowledge crossing borders. No longer can a single sector solve worldwide problems on its own. Now, research & business must collaborate. That s why Brightlands stimulates research & development that crosses disciplines and geographical borders to find new solutions. And, by doing this, we are taking the next step in the economic development of this great region by combining our excellent reputations. Brightland Chemelot Campus is a world renowned hotspot for biomaterials. Brightlands Chemelot Campus is a unique community that combines basic research, applied

5 research, value creation, and education to accelerate business growth all in an effort to solve threats to our planet. The campus was born out of a single, powerful idea: to bring together the knowledge and skills normally only found in major organizations and apply them within a flexible community of businesses and institutes of every size and focus. Here at Brightlands, world-renowned companies and smart start-ups are creating the most successful and innovative community of its kind in Europe. It s taking place in an environment that encourages like-minded researchers and entrepreneurs to share knowledge and leverage open innovation to accelerate the development of new products and product applications. Brightlands offers a location where businesses and researchers want to work, and where enthusiastic students can gain their first practical experience. Brightlands is a campus of international importance. We aim to develop the campus into the primary European site for companies, educational organizations and research facilities for high-performance materials, biomedical materials, and bio-based chemicals and materials. We help companies scale up, from ideas through innovation to products. From initial testing to scale-up and commercial manufacturing to get to the market. Once we have helped with this, we use our whole ecosystem to accelerate our customers. Again, this is a tailor made value proposition. We are happy to tailor it for you."