INSUBRIAS BIOPARK

Insubrias BioPark is the eighth scientific-technological park and bio-incubator in the Italian biotech sector. It is situatated in Gerenzano, in the province of Varese. The Park has a total surface of 52.000 square meters; 15.000 of these are made of offices and laboratories, equipped of the most advanced technologies in the bio-medical sector.

The Park is located in a beautiful green area and in a strategic position. It has got flexible and at the leading edge infrastructures needed to support technical, logistic, computer, data transmission services and promotion, formation, support and consultancy needed to provide incentives to Life Sciences Research and Technological Development and Innovation. The goal is to create an effective relationships network with partners and territory.

The Park is open to Companies, Universities, territorial and scientific Institutions. Moreover, it is an international reality, created by the cooperation of Italian and Swiss excellences that can be found in the Insubriac Region, among Lombardia, Piemonte and Cantone Ticino.

Insubrias Biopark acts as a meeting place to promote the dialogue between scientific and entrepreneurial cultures, creating a contact among Universities, cultural and scientific Associations and the entrepreneurial world. Its purpose is to be able to join all the competences of this exceptional territory, creating an excellent reference point in the research field and to be able to distinguish itself both in a national and international context. The result is going to be more than the simple sum of the single capabilities.

Insubrias BioPark can boast of a great prestige and a big strategic importance in the pharmaceutical sector. This is because, during its twenty-years experience, a lot of important Companies and research groups passed through the Center, making it one of the most known and credited at an international level.

In 1964, Marion Merrel Dow Research Institute started acquiring Lepetit Group. This operation ended in the ‘80s, because of the firm’s important discoveries during the years (like Rifampicina and Teicoplanina molecules). So, Marion Merrel Dow chose the Gerenzano’s Research Center as a strategic point for action. At this Center, several Companies followed one after the other. Each of those Companies produced important discoveries at the Center’s laboratories. Moreover, the Lepetit Group’s research activities about natural products with microbial origin were moved to this Center. So, in 1987, the Gerenzano’s Research Center became the Lepetit Group Research Center. For a lot of years, Lepetit Company has been the excellence, at a global level, for pharmaceutical research, in particular in the field of research and development of antibiotics. In December 1996, after a management buyout operation, Biosearch Italia s.p.a. entered the Gerenzano’s Research Center. Biosearch Italia s.p.a. stood out for a research activity with great results, thanks to the Ramoplanina’s development and, after the merger with the American Company Versicor Inc (that’s how Vicuron Pharmaceutical rised), for the Dalbavancina’s creation. Both Ramoplanina and Dalbavancina are anti-infection molecules. The extreme importance of these two molecules is confirmed by the following presence of the American colossus Pfizer Inc that decided to acquire the newborn society and to purchase both the Research Center and the discoveries’ patents. The hinge of the Center’s research activities was the chemical diversity obtained from one of the biggest collections of microorganisms able to produce active ingredients. After the Vicuron’s buyout, Pfizer decided to give to FIIRV some research assets. The choice was due to the fact that FIIRV was the organization that offered the best guarantees about the ability to take value from these assets. A further confirm of its value, is that Pfizer gave to the Foundation the Research Center too. All the above passages and alternations prove the central role the Research Center had in these years. Till today, the research and development of new antibiotics with natural origin for prevention and treatment of infective diseases was the primary activity. In the future, the Foundation would like to advertise itself also as an active protagonist in the applied biotechnologies sector.

A lot of international researchers passed through Insubrias BioPark’s structures and laboratories, working on a lot of research projects. This brought to an increase in the Center’s knowledge resources and to the need of a continuous instrumentations’ updating. The Center has got a 15.000 square meter surface for laboratories and offices and high technology instruments like:

• Mass spectrometer (GS-MS, LC-MS and electrospray MS), UV-visible spectrometer, IR spectrometer (for chemical analysis) – spectrophotometer
• 6 robot stations for High Throughput Screening
• 1 robot station Perkin Elmer Janus, for extract microbic preparation
• Pilot fermentation system with bioreactors from 3 to 2.000 liters and devices for extraction, fractionation, purification
• HPLC
• Robot for preparation of samples with SPE (Solid Phase Extraction)
• Thermostatic Rooms
• 7 autoclaves – 4 computerized autoclaves / 800 L
• Clean Rooms
• Gene sequencer
• Oscilloscopes
• Microfiltration systems
• Systems for the reverse osmosis distilled water production
• System for industrial water and soften water production

Insubrias BioPark provides the settled Companies with:

• Assistance and consultancy for the implementation of research projects consistent with the Foundation’s activity
• Technological transfer (patents and post-patent assistance)
• Marketing and communication
• Technical-scientific information, thanks to an on-line subscription to the most important scientific magazines
• Documentation thanks to the Library made of more than 7.000 volumes

In addition, the settled Companies take advantage of the following technical, logistical and security services:

• Presences’ survey
• Centralized computer network
• Telephone lines
• Internet data lines (optical fibre)
• Company table
• Ordinary and extraordinary maintenance
• Vigilance
• Reception and telephone exchange
• Administrative office
• Postal sorting and correspondence sending
• Waste disposal
• Prevention and protection
• Sanitary control
• Cleaning

SerViRe – Management Company
On 1st March, 2007, rises SerViRe S.r.l., the services society for the management of the whole Gerenzano’s Research Center.
In particular, SerViRe S.r.l.’s goals are:

• Management, renovation and maintenance of real estates (social properties or belonging to others)
• Planning and realization (with proper and others’ means), check and maintenance (planned or extraordinary) of the Scientific Research Laboratories, their systems, machineries and structures. Great importance is given to the security conditions’ check
• Organizational and logistic services for the management of Research Centers, Laboratories, social-sanitary formation Centers, public and private offices. Part of such services are: goods’ movements, logistics, warehouse, cleaning, reorganization and small maintenance such as green maintenance, and, in general, all the related auxiliary and accessory services.

SeViRe S.r.l. offers guaranteed services such as:

• Supply of the illumination service, electric energy, telephone line, heating and cooling, anti-intrusion and anti-fire systems
• Revision and writing of the risks’ valuation
• Special waste disposal
• Incoming post service
• Reception service
• Waiting room service
• Conference rooms service: press room, 40 places conference room, 100 places convention hall
• Common areas cleaning
• Night and festival days security service

Other possible services, on request

• Assistance for network’s installation, starting and use
• Intervention for maintenance of ordinary and extraordinary allocation of the form (hydraulic, electric and mechanical assistance, in general)
• Secretariat general services, and interpreting
• Cleaning of the equipped form
• Maintenance and training of the fire team, as for the law D.Lgs n.81, 9th April, 2008