ZURICH, SWITZERLAND and LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND--(Marketwire - April 26, 2010) - Two of industry's big names have officially announced their impending arrival in the EPFL's Innovation Square. Debiopharm SA is a Swiss pharmaceutical company that is known worldwide, especially for developing new cancer treatments. Cisco (
Adrienne Corboud Fumagalli, the EPFL's Vice-President for Innovation and Technology Transfer, is responsible for promoting Innovation Square. She expects to make it a place where scientists and industrialists can build relationships and feed their creativity. "These two worlds do not naturally associate with each other. Innovation Square provides more opportunities for them to interact," she explains. Geographic proximity as a stimulus for cooperation: such is the EPFL's gamble. "The roles should be clearly separated. Research and discovery are up to the universities, development and marketing belong to the industries."
Debiopharm, Molecular Designer
Rolland-Yves Mauvernay, Debiopharm's president, considers that "this agreement reflects Debiopharm's deep roots in the Lausanne region. The EPFL is behind many major scientific advances and cannot help but stimulate companies in the Lake Geneva basin." This is not Debiopharm's first collaboration with the EPFL. It has endowed a chair there and awards an annual science prize, both of which bear its name. The Vaud company actively works with research teams at the school to develop new molecules.
Cisco, Internet and Video Applications
Cisco is a new arrival at the EPFL. The initiative itself is also something novel for Cisco, and gives it its very first branch at a university. "This kind of presence is a key example of closer collaboration between science and industry," explains Eric Waltert, the general manager of Cisco Switzerland. "Our approach reiterates Cisco's strategic engagement in Switzerland and specifically to Vaud. In this way, we will accelerate and advance the development of products and solutions that are important to Switzerland, such as fiber-to-the-home and Cisco TelePresence, our immersive collaboration technology."
The arrival of Debiopharm and Cisco strengthens Innovation Square. Even before the opening of the first building, which is planned for this summer, three big names from industry have already answered the roll call, Logitech having already announced in 2009 that it was coming. Adrienne Corboud Fumagalli believes that Innovation Square will improve development of researchers' work. "Businesses know how to recognize an idea's potential. By having them close by, we will avoid having certain brilliant discoveries end up in the middle of a pile of papers or a graveyard of industrial prototypes."
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Cisco:
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pahlert@cisco.com
Phone: +41 44 878 73 92
EPFL:
Jerome Grosse
Media & Communications Office
jerome.grosse@epfl.ch
Phone: +41 79 434 73 26
Debiopharm:
Maurice Wagner
director Corporate Affairs & Communication
mwagner@debiopharm.com
Phone: +41 (0)21 321 01 11