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XAVIER LAMBOURG/METIS-EDITING
SERVER FOR TIME
ALEX VIEUX: Dasar CEO and
Founder |
Posted Sunday, Oct. 13, 2002; 2.15 p.m. BST
Europe is playing a central role in research into stem
cells — which have the ability to grow into almost any
type of tissue in the body — thanks in part to this young
Swedish scientist. A physician with a Ph.D. in neuroscience,
Frisén was studying spinal cord injuries at Sweden's
Karolinska Institute when he spotted something unusual through
his microscope: some odd-looking adult brain cells appeared
to be generating new ones. It was 1993 and the theory at the
time was that people were born with a fixed number of neurons,
as the nerve cells in the brain are known. If those cells were
killed or damaged, then permanent impairment could result since
the body was not able to create new ones. Frisén's discovery,
and those of others working in the field, opened up the possibility
of nurturing new neurons from old, a development that could
lead to treatments for such neurodegenerative disorders as Parkinson's
and Alzheimer's. Since 1999, Frisén's work has brought
him 10 awards in Sweden, including one from the Royal Swedish
Academy of Sciences. In 2000, a private research institute offered
him a million dollars a year to continue his research in the
U.S. Frisén says he turned down the offer for three reasons:
Karolinska Institute made an attractive counteroffer, he likes
living in Stockholm, and it was unclear if he would be able
to keep the rights to any new discoveries if he were working
for an American private research institution. NeuroNova's aim
is to develop drugs that stimulate stem cells in the brain to
crank out new nerve cells to replace those damaged by brain-wasting
diseases.
The Vision Thing: "The challenge is to understand how stem cells generate neurons and find a way to stimulate the process."
Forward Spin: While it is likely to be some time before NeuroNova develops actual drugs, Frisén's research is progressing. Within 12 months he plans to publish a paper documenting his discovery of a "regulatory switch" responsible for initiating the growth of new nerve cells in the brain.
Just weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, Vieux managed
to attract some 600 tech CEOs — including big names like
Michael Dell and 3Com and Palm chairman Eric Benhamou —
to Rome for his annual conference, the European Technology Roundtable
Exhibition (ETRE). The turnout was better than expected but
the tone was clear: the tech market has been hampered by terrorism
and the worldwide economic downturn. The difficult climate has
led to massive consolidation and Vieux, who serves as a filter
between start-ups and potential investors, is adapting his role
as a matchmaker accordingly. Vieux serves on the boards of four
public companies and several private ones, including America's
White Pajama, which makes customer-service automation software.
With Vieux's help the company secured venture-capital financing
in less than
a month. Now those days are gone. Instead of offering start-ups
fast access to capital, Vieux helps them sell whatever is left
of their businesses to bigger players. For example, Vieux recently
brokered the sale of a small French Internet company to Wanadoo,
France Telecom's Internet service provider division. The start-up
considered itself lucky given the current climate, even though
the price Wanadoo paid equaled only a third of the company's
estimated value. While big companies are picking up great assets
on the cheap, they have headaches of their own, making Vieux's
job as one of the industry's premiere matchmakers still very
much in demand.
The Vision Thing: "The crisis has spared no one, but the tech sector is still full of promise."
Forward Spin: Vieux predicts the tech industry won't recover before 2004.
Pouletty, a physician and serial entrepreneur, is out
to boost Europe's biotech sector. He is credited with getting
the French government to pass "Plan Biotech 2002,"
which aims to help France's biotech sector catch up with Britain
and Germany. The plan includes a mixture of public and private
funds to boost new companies and a bank-loan guarantee fund
to allow mature biotech firms to acquire foreign rivals. Pouletty
is also busy running his fourth biotech company, DrugAbuse Sciences,
which is developing treatments for alcoholism and drug addiction.
The company is testing a vaccine and antibody therapies to lessen
the brain's access to heroin and meta-amphetamines as
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BENOIT DECOURT - REA |
well as a sustained-release opiate-receptor antagonist that
aims to discourage alcohol and heroin use. His second company,
U.S-based SangStat, which develops therapies to avoid organ-transplant
rejection, is one of the few profitable biotech companies. Pouletty
is also a co-founder of Truffle Ventures Fund, a €100 million
pot specializing in biotech.
The Vision Thing: "I want to open the eyes of politicians and the private sector so they will take the steps necessary to help Europe catch up with the U.S. in biotech by 2010."
Forward Spin: Pouletty is lobbying the French government to pass a new law that will exclude capital-gains and wealth taxes for those who invest in any innovative company less than 18 years old. The law would also reduce labor costs and slash corporate tax rates for start-ups.
Levin, a British citizen who was born in Zimbabwe and
schooled in America, first became interested in mobile devices
while working at financial publishing firm Euro-money Institutional
Investor in New York. The belief that readers will increasingly
receive information in new ways led him to his job as CEO of
Symbian, which is attempting to establish itself as the operating
system of choice for the next generation of mobile phones. Symbian,
formed in 1998, counts Ericsson, Nokia, Matsushita (Panasonic),
Motorola, Psion, Siemens and Sony Ericsson among its owners.
Together, the shareholders control 72% of the mobile market,
making the consortium the single
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MARCUS LYON |
greatest obstacle to Microsoft's ambition to put its operating
system into mobile phones. The Nokia 9210 Communicator, the
first phone based on an open version of Symbian's operating
system, was released in 2001. Since then other models have been
shipped, including two camera phones, the Nokia 3650 and Sony
Ericsson's P800. Companies like Samsung are purchasing Nokia's
Series 60 software platform, which is packaged with Symbian's
operating system, as a way to speed up the introduction of new
phone models, thus making Symbian well placed to benefit if
3G phones hit it big.
The Vision Thing: "Our goal is to begin to establish a mass market for smart phones."
Forward Spin: While
Microsoft's operating system is likely to dominate personal digital assistants with voice capabilities, analysts predict that Symbian will win its bid to become the dominant operating system in mobile phones.
Despite the worldwide tech slump, Paris-based Business
Objects enjoyed growth of 10% globally in the second quarter.
But then again, Liautaud, who cofounded the company in 1990
with Denis Payre (see No. 21),
is accustomed to performing under pressure. At 15, Liautaud
won the ball boy tournament at the 1977 French Open. Twenty-five
years later, he's still on center court. Few would have believed
that his French software company, which pioneered business intelligence
software to help companies analyze corporate data, would become
a global powerhouse. Today, Business Objects does more than
80% of its business outside France and has annual revenues of
more than €425 million. Liautaud attributes the company's
success in the downturn to a decision to move away from simply
selling reporting and analysis tools. Instead, its new focus
is to help customers
share data better internally as well as with their customers,
partners and suppliers. DaimlerChrysler, for example, uses Business
Objects software to speed up car production. The company has
made seven acquisitions recently to strengthen its offerings
in this area, including the $65 million purchase of data integration
specialists Acta Technologies, which supplies software to help
business customers gather and interpret information. With a
global company to run and a fifth child on the way, Liautaud
has less time to participate in the sports he loves: paragliding
in the French Alps, windsurfing in Hawaii and trekking in Nepal.
But he continues to find time for lobbying governments to make
life easier for tech entrepreneurs in Europe.
The Vision Thing: "It's all about helping companies make the best decision by getting data into the hands of the right people at the right time."
Forward Spin: At a time of low spending on technology, businesses could well be willing to invest in software that helps them make better use of the data they collect about their customers, suppliers and competitors
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