A group of economic developers from the Netherlands spent the week meeting with Arizona scientists and business leaders to forge relationships for potential future partnerships.
According to newspaper reports, officials from the West Holland Foreign Investment Agency were generally encouraged by what they saw. “We think there is a very good match here,” delegation member Alie Tigchelhoff told the Arizona Republic. “Of course, everyone is looking in the Bay Area but we wanted to see what was happening here.”
The group was led by Siebe van der Zee, the Phoenix-based Dutch consul for Arizona. They visited about 20 organizations in Phoenix and Tucson, with stops including Arizona State University; Greater Phoenix Economic Council; Integrated Biomolecule Corp.; Intrinsic Bioprobes Inc.; Ribomed; Taser International Inc.; Translational Genomics Research Institute; University of Arizona; UA Science and Technology Park, including tenant Acenta Discovery Inc.; and Ventana Medical Systems Inc. They also met bioscience leaders at a reception in Phoenix sponsored by the Arizona Bioindustry Association and the Flinn Foundation.
The entourage tentatively plans to visit Arizona again during its June trip to the BIO trade show in San Francisco.
For more information:
“…biotech check,” Arizona Republic, 03/17/2004
“Dutch bio visit,” Arizona Daily Star, 03/18/2004