HISTORY

In the year 2000, the global biotech boom reached its first major peak. Around this time, three scientists from the Max Planck institute were located with their laboratories in the middle of the most vibrant biotech cluster in Central Europe – Munich/Martinsried. Observing the huge level of activities around small start-up companies, investment funds and large-scale pharma concerns became aware of the dramatic changes in R&D relating to new drugs. Soon they understood that the way drugs were developed – the whole R&D chain – would be subject to new procedures and that these changes would lead to new demands in the market. Start-up companies took over many tasks formerly located within the R&D departments of the established pharma industry. Large-scale pharma companies began to focus on licensing, late-stage development and the marketing and distribution of drugs. Especially in the field of early development, a huge demand for services evolved. But start-up companies lacked the necessary infrastructure and know-how for the early drug development phase. Large pharma companies needed new products that were developed in a professional and reliable manner. Seeing all these demands, both locally in Martinsried as well as globally, the three Max Planck scientists, together with an industry-experienced CFO, founded Aurigon with the objective of creating a service company that would support all players in this field. So this is how the Aurigon story began…

AURIGON TIMELINE