7 September 2014

PRESS RELEASE – Sherbrooke Innopole will be leading a life sciences mission to Sweden from September 8 to 11, 2014. Two Sherbrooke businesses, IBIOM and Archimed Medical, as well as the Université de Sherbrooke will be part of the delegation, headed by Josée Fortin and Josée Blanchard, respectively Director General and Director, Business Development – Life Sciences key sector at Sherbrooke Innopole.

The Sherbrooke delegation will travel to Medicon Village, a research, innovation, and business complex for the life sciences located in Lund, at the southernmost tip of Sweden. Representatives from Belgium, Germany, and the United Kingdom, with whom Medicon Village collaborates, will also participate.

Presentations by each organization as well as business meetings have been planned for the two days in Lund. The delegates will also visit MAX IV, a synchrotron radiation research centre currently under construction.

This is Sherbrooke’s third visit to Sweden and the first following the signature of a cooperation agreement with Medicon Village in 2013, a product of the Sherbrooke International Life Sciences Summit (SILS). The goal of the current mission is to meet potential partners and clients and to promote Sherbrooke’s expertise and business and research environment.

“For a partnership to truly benefit Sherbrooke, including its businesses and researchers, it is important that the partnership exist beyond paper. That is what this mission will accomplish; this is a remarkable opportunity for participating companies to knock on the door of this vast market. IBIOM and Archimed Medical will thus have an opportunity to meet prospective European partners and distributors,” noted Josée Blanchard.

Prior to the Lund mission, Sherbrooke Innopole will attend the Nordic Life Sciences (NLS) Days conference in Stockholm on September 8 and 9. This is the largest life sciences partnership event in northern Europe. On this occasion, Ms. Fortin and Ms. Blanchard will meet with representatives of a number of European industrial clusters.

Sherbrooke Innopole will subsequently take advantage of being in Europe to visit other centres of excellence for life sciences in Germany (Medical Valley) and Belgium (lifetech.brussels and BioWin). Paris, London, and Montpellier are also on the itinerary. In France and England, 11 meetings have been planned with Investissement Québec, Québec Government Offices, the High Commission of Canada, and the Canadian Embassy, as well as with the Montpellier Agglomeration, with which Sherbrooke Innopole has had an economic partnership for the past five years.

“The goal is always to raise the profile and extend the reach of Sherbrooke as a major hub of innovation in five key sectors, which include the Life Sciences. During our conversations with international offices of government bodies, we emphasize Sherbrooke’s many assets as the perfect city in which to launch a business, innovate, and invest. We describe the services that Sherbrooke Innopole has to offer as well as our team’s complementary expertise. These overseas offices are very often the first contact for businesses wanting to open a branch in Québec, hence the importance of giving Sherbrooke a strategic position,” explained Josée Fortin.

“The mission to Europe will also provide an excellent opportunity to promote the second edition of the Sherbrooke International Life Sciences Summit in September 2015. In particular, we will be seeking prominent keynote speakers and initiating and pursuing discussions to attract European delegations to the Summit,” added Josée Blanchard.