 |
 |
 |
 |
 DIGITALeurope
TIME's latest reports on technolgy and innovation.
DE Archive
A comprehensive listing of TIME's past tech reports
E-Tech
An archive of reports about emerging technolgy and its development
Start-up of the Week
New entries onto the European tech stage
|
|
 |
 |
|
|
E-mail your letter to the editor
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
| DINKO
VALERIO: Crucell, CEO |
Posted Sunday, Oct. 13, 2002; 2.15 p.m. BST
As a professor of physics at Cambridge University in 1989, Friend led a team that discovered a way to make polymers emit intense light under an electric current. The researchers formed Cambridge Display Technology (CDT) in 1992 to translate this discovery into lighter, brighter, more energy-efficient color displays for computers, televisions and mobile devices. The company was funded with seed money from an unlikely source: singer Phil Collins and three other ex-members of the rock group Genesis. Later investors include Cambridge University, Intel and American venture capitalists. CDT has licensed its technology to several major electronics manufacturers, including Philips, Osram, DuPont and Delta Electronics, all of which plan to launch light-emitting polymer displays using CDT technology this year. The first full-color mobile phone screen using the polymer display is expected from Seiko Epson in 2003. The market for such
organic-light emitting displays is expected to grow to up to $4.2 billion by 2007. Friend, a 2002 recipient of Britain's Royal Academy of Engineering Silver Medal, has found another application for the technology in semiconductors: the polymers can be printed directly onto any surface to form circuits mo
|
|
|
|
|
MITCH JENKINS for TIME |
re cheaply than conventional silicon chips. In 2000 Friend cofounded Plastic Logic, which has partnerships with Dow Chemical and Seiko Epson, to develop this technology. The polymer circuits are expected to be used in flat panel displays, electronic paper and labels, wearable computing applications and perhaps as a replacement for current bar code technology.
The Vision Thing: "Almost anything you can do with silicon you can do with polymers."
Forward Spin: Next on Plastic Logic's list of potential applications: polymer diodes for use in solar cells.
Lingjaerde continues to be instrumental in putting European tech companies on the map. His experience as a venture capitalist — he founded Vision Capital in 1996 to bring emerging European tech firms to the U.S. market — helped him spot the need for the European Tech Tour Association, the independent non-profit organization he set up in 1998. The Tech Tour identifies the most innovative technology companies in a selected European country and then introduces them to a group of investors and blue-chip corporations from around the world on a two-day national tour. The association has so far presented more than 250 tech firms in 10 countries. Among the Tech Tour start-ups that have gone on to success is
|
|
|
|
|
XAVIER LAMBOURG - METIS/EDITING SERVER FOR TIME |
Altitun, a Swedish company specializing in high-power lasers for optical packet switching networks. U.S. network equipment maker ADC Telecommunications paid $949 million for it in May 2000.
The Vision Thing: "In the 1980s, technology had to come from the U.S. to be credible. In the '90s, the emergence of smart card technology, the development of the World Wide Web, and the adoption of the GSM standard put Europe on the tech map. In the 21st century, many new winners will emerge from Europe."
Forward Spin: The Association is considering organizing tech tours in Israel, India, Russia, China and Japan, and launching biotech tours in Europe.
Valerio, a molecular biologist, is a pioneer in the use
of healthy human cells as a basis for new vaccines to fight
disease. Most vaccines are currently derived from animal cells,
but some — such as those for diseases like hiv and Ebola
— can only be produced with human cells. Enter Crucell,
a publicly traded antibody and vaccine company. Valerio and
his team have found a way to make healthy cells derived from
fetal tissue continuously replicate by inserting small segments
of dna into them. Crucell has used this technology to develop
a human cell line called per.c6, which can be used as a kind
of biological factory
to produce a variety of antibodies and vaccines. Pharmaceutical
companies — including Merck, Novartis, Aventis and Pfizer
— have already licensed the cell line from Crucell to create
their own biopharmaceutical products, with hiv and Ebola being
the prime targets for potential new treatment regimens.
The Vision Thing: "We want to discover new ways to utilize the immune system to combat disease."
Forward Spin: Merck is using Crucell's per.c6 cell line to make an experimental hiv vaccine. Merck has released data showing that monkeys infected with an hiv-like virus which were given the vaccine did not go on to develop aids. The vaccine is currently being tested on humans. Meanwhile, the U.S. National Institutes of Health announced in May that they will use per.c6 and AdVac, another Crucell technology, to develop a vaccine against Ebola. AdVac uses a common-cold virus to carry segments of another virus, such as Ebola, into cells to spur those cells to produce antibodies against that disease.
Evans was only 29 when he earned his first million. He
put the check in his back pocket and celebrated by going to
the pub for bangers and mash and a pint. "I thought, I'll
have another million of those," says the Welsh scientist-turned-entrepreneur,
who was knighted in 2001 for his services to the British biotech
industry. The thrill of making money from science has never
worn off. Evans has so far created 14 biotech companies in Europe
— including Chiroscience, which later merged with Celltech
to become one of Europe's bigger biotech firms, as well as three
other publicly traded ventures. Evans says that among his proudest
accomplishments was developing in the 1980s a compound that
prevents the lungs of premature babies from collapsing. His
reward was frequently being recognized — and hugged —
by strangers pushing prams down the streets of Cambridge who
were grateful to him for saving the lives of their children.
In 1996 he cofounded Merlin Biosciences, a life-sciences venture-capital
firm. Merlin now has about $500 million under management and
expects its third venture-capital fund to close in early 2003
at around $250 million. Investments include ReNeuron, a stem-cell
research company, and Cyclacel, which is targeting cancer.
The Vision Thing: "Europe has woken up to the opportunity of biotech and is going to take a major position on the world stage."
Forward Spin: Evans plans to launch a global biotech fund to include the U.S. and Asia.
In the last 10 months Saxby has been knighted by Queen
Elizabeth and awarded the 2002 Faraday Medal from Britain's
Institute of Electrical Engineers for his "outstanding
contribution" to the electronics industry. In the past
week, however, his company's stock price has plummeted by more
than 60%. After 17 straight quarters of growth, ARM issued a
warning that sales would fall well below expectations due to
a drop in revenue from licensing fees. (ARM designs chips and
then licenses their architectures to chipmakers.) The announcement
took industry observers — and even ARM's CEO, Warren East
— by surprise, since the company had so far weathered the
tech
|
|
|
|
|
HELMUT CLAUS |
downturn remarkably well. Despite the dramatic fall, ARM —
which Saxby took from an unknown start-up to a public firm with
a market capitalization that peaked at $16 billion and now stands
at $700 million — still holds more than 80% of the global
market for mobile handset chips. The company's designs are now
appearing in products like computer hard drives, printers, game
consoles and set-top boxes. ARM is also branching into a new
area: helping its clients integrate their software and hardware.
The Vision Thing: "We can help shorten the development cycle of advanced new products by enabling hardware and software to come together."
Forward Spin: Saxby's firm remains the industry's de facto chip standard for embedded microprocessor architecture, so ARM is well positioned to cash in when the recovery does finally arrive.
|
|
|
|
|
