46 THE SCIENTIST | the-scientist.com
BIO BUSINESS© ISTOCK.COM, YASONYAI
n the fall of 2016, Alnylam Pharma-
ceuticals was looking to expand. The
Cambridge, Massachusetts–based
company had therapies based on RNA
interference (RNAi) technology in late-
stage clinical testing for a handful of rare
diseases, and wanted to establish a pres-
ence in Europe to better serve patients
there. By the end of the following year,
the company had opened offices in
Maidenhead, UK; Zug, Switzerland; and
Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to serve as
its three European hubs.
Scouting for new locations in Europe,
the company found Amsterdam particu-
larly appealing, says Marco Fossatelli,
Alnylam’s country manager in the Nether-
lands. Alnylam already had long-standing
partnerships with three large academic
medical centers in the Netherlands that
had hosted some of the company’s Phase
3 trials. And Amsterdam checked all the
right boxes: it has a highly skilled work-
force and is easily accessible and naviga-
ble by public transportation. It also had
a blossoming life sciences and health
sector. “[The city] has the right biotech
spirit,” Fossatelli says.
Alnylam is not alone is its assessment of
the Netherlands—and Amsterdam in partic-
ular—as a good location for biotech and phar-
maceutical companies. Nearly two dozen
life sciences companies established offices
in the country in 2018, according to Char-
lene Verweij, an international press officer
at Amsterdam InBusiness, the city’s official
foreign investment agency; 42 more joined
the following year. But perhaps the greatest
endorsement of the city’s growing life sciences
and health sector was the EU Member States’
2017 decision, following the UK’s vote to
withdraw from the European Union, to relo-
cate the once London-based European Med-
icines Agency (EMA) to the Dutch capital.The presence of the EMA, which officially
moved to Amsterdam in March 2019, is
an additional lure for the pharmaceuti-
cal industry, says Annemiek Verkamman,
managing director of Dutch biotechnol-
ogy industry association HollandBIO.
While the agency’s presence alone would
not necessarily drive a company to open
an office in the city, she says, the movedrew attention to the country’s life sci-
ences and health sector. “Now, the Neth-
erlands is on the map.”A practical choice
Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit early
last year, Anant Murthy would regularly
leave his home in Geneva, Switzerland,
first thing on Monday morning to catchAmsterdam is growing into a central hub of life sciences and health R&D, as evidenced
by the recent relocation of the European Medicines Agency to the city.BY JEF AKSTGoing Dutch