ILMAC has further enhanced its reputation as the key supplier exhibition in Switzerland for the pharmaceutical and chemical sectors. Hall 1 of Exhibition Centre Basel played host for four days to around 500 exhibitors presenting their products in the fields of research, development, environmental and production technology. The expectations for ILMAC were met, in spite of the decline in investment projects. Suppliers welcomed 17,015 visitors from Switzerland and the neighbouring countries during the exhibition and give an upbeat assessment of how the exhibition went. The aspects highlighted in particular were the quality of the visitors and the positive impact on the exhibition’s profile made by the events going on simultaneously during Basel Life Sciences Week 2010.

ILMAC, the industrial fair for research, development, environmental and process technology in the pharmaceutical, chemical and biotechnology sectors, took place from 21 to 24 September 2010 at Exhibition Centre Basel. A total of 17,015 visitors attended the exhibition during four days.

Initial results from the representative visitor survey and assessments from the exhibitors indicate that there was an overall improvement in the quality of visitors, even though the number of visitors fell slightly below the high expectations of the exhibition’s management team. In particular, the companies exhibiting in Hall 1.0, where mainly production systems were on display, had to report a slight drop in visitor numbers. The current low level of investment in the chemicals sector was noticeable there. The various events organised as part of Basel Life Sciences Week helped generate a positive synergy effect which ILMAC benefited from. The proportion of participants in the exhibition from abroad was up on previous years from 30% to 39%.

“Although we notice that there is less investment in process technology in local industry, we are very pleased with how the exhibition has gone. Our company operates globally and its structure is based on industrial sectors. However, at ILMAC we obviously focus on the Swiss pharmaceutical and chemical markets and we are pleased that our key customers attended. For the future, we should consider integrating the food and drink sector to a greater extent into the concept,” said Patrick Meyer, Head of Marketing at Endress + Hauser Metso AG.

School pupils and students inspired by the SCS Scientific Forum
The accompanying event was devoted to the subject of polymers. The Swiss Chemical Society tailored the Scientific Forum deliberately to visitors’ needs. The first day dealt with everyday synthetic materials and appealed to secondary school pupils. More than 700 schoolchildren from Switzerland and southern Germany accepted the SCS’s invitation. The life experiments carried out by researcher Thomas Schweizer from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich inspired the young audience as much as the lectures. The discussion which followed was lively as well. The latest results from the world of science were presented on the second and third days. Among the highlights were the lectures given by Krzysztof Matyjaszewski (Carnegie Mellon University, US) and Rolf Mülhaupt (University of Freiburg, Germany). Around 100 students heard on the fourth day how the polymer industry is a valuable source of employment, with companies presenting a wide range of career opportunities for chemistry graduates.

ILMAC as part of Basel Life Sciences Week
ILMAC was staged under the banner of Basel Life Sciences Week. Basel Life Sciences Week is an initiative comprising five theme-related events with the aim of joining forces to exhibit together and highlight Basel as a location for industry and research. This includes apart from ILMAC, the SCS Scientific Forum, the MipTec Drug Discovery Conference, the BioValley Life Sciences Week and the Friedrich Miescher Institute anniversary symposium. Information will be supplied in the coming weeks about the continuing development of this joint initiative.

www.ilmac24.ch – 24/7, 365 days a year
Until the next ILMAC exhibition details are available for anyone who is interested of all the exhibitors, products, innovations and contacts from the portal www.ilmac24.ch.
Since its launch in early July the portal has already had 270,000 page views.

ILMAC will next be held in Exhibition Centre Basel from 24 to 27 September 2013.

Pictures are available here

Contact for media
Dominique Farner
Communication Manager
Tel.: +41 58 206 21 99
Fax: +41 58 206 21 89
dominique.farner@ilmac.ch

Address
MCH Exhibition Switzerland (Basel) AG
ILMAC
CH-4005 Basel