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It represents an investment of some €70 million by the pharmaceutical company ELPEN and operates as an independent organisation, with its own board of directors and international scientific leadership.
It is the "natural evolution of a philosophy six decades in the making," explains Eleni Pentafragka, Executive Vice Chair of the Athens LifeTech Park and Chief Strategy Officer of ELPEN. She recalls that ELPEN's founder and her grandfather, Dimitris Pentafragkas, "believed that the Greek pharmaceutical industry has a duty to invest not only in production but also in knowledge", something he put into practice with ELPEN's Research and Experimental Centre, daring to do something unprecedented for its time: collaborative research between a Greek pharmaceutical company and the country's domestic scientific community.
Now, ALTP is taking this same logic to an entirely different scale. Spanning 15,000 square metres, the park combines three core functions: a biotech incubator for companies in the health sciences; support services for pharmaceutical research and development (R&D) under European regulatory standards; and a modern education and conference centre.
ELPEN's vision is for the park to establish itself as an international catalyst for innovation in the life sciences, with a mission to accelerate the discovery and development of new therapies through scientific excellence and collaboration, for the benefit of patients worldwide, notes Ms Pentafragka, speaking to Kathimerini.
"The way scientific innovation is produced today has changed. In the life sciences in particular, progress increasingly emerges from the convergence of different fields and the collaboration of people with complementary knowledge, experience and skills," she adds, emphasising that major scientific advances are born precisely where different scientific disciplines and approaches meet.
Greece possesses exceptional scientific talent -a fact now recognised by many multinational groups. "What is needed is an ecosystem that connects universities, research centres, industry, startups and investors, so that knowledge can be translated into application. That is what we are trying to create at the Athens LifeTech Park," Ms Pentafragka stresses.
For Greece, the crucial point is that conditions which for decades remained disconnected are now beginning to come together. The country has a strong scientific base, internationally recognised human talent and a significant domestic pharmaceutical industry. To these are now added competitive operating costs relative to the United States and Western Europe; the capacity for preclinical and clinical research within a rigorous European regulatory environment; and, for the first time, the presence of specialised venture capital in the life sciences, backed by European and Greek institutions.
The opportunity for the country, therefore, is to connect substantively with international biotechnology ecosystems, translating scientific knowledge into research, development and, ultimately, new therapies. It is a wager of pan-European proportions. As Kleanthis Xanthopoulos, Chairman of the Board of the Athens LifeTech Park, points out: "Europe does not suffer from a deficit of science. What it needs is to connect its advantages with greater speed, to ensure a more effective transition from discovery to development, and to show a greater appetite for risk."
For ELPEN, this choice is not a matter of circumstance but a deliberate strategic decision. As Theodore Tryfon, the company's CEO and President of Panhellenic Pharmaceutical Industries (PEF), notes: "With this investment we are taking a leading role in the effort to develop biotechnology in Greece and the wider region. The risk is real, but for us, investing in innovation is a cornerstone."
The conditions are now in place. The question that remains open is whether the State will stand alongside this ambition with the speed the private sector demands -providing the right incentives, the necessary policies and the institutional recognition required.
