Poland's biotech bottleneck

The pace of grant funding for Poland's biotechnology sector can hardly be described as a trickle. Just 3% of the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development's (PARP) funding allocation for this year has been recommended for distribution, with only one company selected for support. The industry is now hoping for a breakthrough following a leadership shake-up at the ministry responsible for development funds.

Changing horses midrace is usually a bad idea. But Poland's biotechnology industry does not seem particularly concerned about the sudden departure of two key decision-makers from the ministry overseeing development grants: Minister Katarzyna Pełczyńska-Nałęcz and Deputy Minister Jan Szyszko.

Quite the opposite. Representatives of biotechnology companies interviewed by XYZ openly suggest that things can only improve.

"Until now, things have been about as bad as they could get, especially when it comes to grants from the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development (PARP). But securing funding from the National Centre for Research and Development (NCBR) isn't easy either, although for different reasons," says the head of a Polish biotechnology company, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Companies are reluctant to comment publicly on the leadership changes, as it remains unclear how the transition will unfold, who will leave, and who will remain at the ministry and its subordinate agencies.

Nevertheless, the industry hopes that Agnieszka Bartol, presented by the prime minister as the candidate for the new development funds minister, will be better equipped to make effective use of EU funding. As Poland's former permanent representative to the European Union, she brings years of experience working within EU institutions.

It can hardly get worse

Of the PLN 300 million allocated to two biotechnology funding calls under the Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform (STEP) program this year, just one project has been recommended for support. It is set to receive PLN 8.4 million – less than 3% of the available funding.

The figures are striking, even by the standards of competitive grant programs, where a significant proportion of applications are normally rejected during evaluation.

In August, we reported that not a single company had applied for one of PARP's two biotechnology funding tracks, each with a budget of PLN 150 million. The call was canceled and has not been reopened.

The second track attracted only six applications. Five reached the final evaluation stage, but four were rejected.

Ultimately, the only project recommended for funding was submitted by Kraków-based Instytut Biotechnologii Surowic i Szczepionek Biomed (IBSS Biomed).

The company plans an investment worth PLN 21.23 million, of which PARP would contribute PLN 8.40 million. The agency explicitly cautions that a positive evaluation does not yet guarantee a funding agreement.

The Kraków-based company intends to modernize its Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) infrastructure, quality control facilities, and systems safeguarding the production of critical vaccines.

Applications for less than half the available funding

Track A, which attracted no applications, was intended to finance investments in innovative critical technologies.

The focus was on solutions introducing cutting-edge or breakthrough technologies to the EU market with substantial economic potential. PARP listed DNA and RNA technologies, gene therapies, bioinformatics, nanobiotechnology, and advanced biotechnology processes among the eligible areas.

The absence of applicants did not mean that Poland lacked interested companies. Rather, businesses concluded that preparing applications would be a waste of time because they were unlikely to receive funding anyway.

Track B performed only marginally better. It was designed to strengthen the EU's strategic independence and domestic production capacity in critical areas, including pharmaceuticals.

Companies submitted six projects requesting a combined PLN 122 million. In other words, demand was lower than the PLN 150 million available – an unusual situation compared with grant programs in other sectors.

Only IBSS Biomed was recommended for funding. Applications from Mabion, Polpharma, Diagnostyka Oncogene, and Polski Zielarz were ultimately unsuccessful.

Across both tracks, companies applied for funding equivalent to approximately 41% of PARP's PLN 300 million allocation. Yet projects representing just 3% of the budget were recommended for support.

The human factor

The problems therefore began even before the evaluation of applications.

Companies simply did not apply for most of the money available. Industry representatives attribute this partly to the competition rules, but even more to the officials making the decisions.

Their restrictive approach, driven by concerns about potential criticism from EU institutions, means they would rather leave grants unawarded than face questions about how the money was allocated.

"We have assurances from the European Commission that the list of technologies eligible for support is not exhaustive. Poland could expand it according to its research needs. Unfortunately, our institutions have adopted a restrictive, narrow interpretation – one that is more convenient for officials than for businesses," Marta Winiarska, president of BioInMed, an organization representing biotechnology companies, told XYZ in August.

Shortly before Deputy Minister Jan Szyszko left the government, industry representatives sent him another appeal for action.

In their letter, they argued that companies' experiences pointed to problems extending beyond the design of the eligibility criteria themselves.

"Serious doubts have arisen about whether some of the experts evaluating innovative medical biotechnology projects are adequately prepared for the task, particularly when it comes to understanding the specifics of technology commercialization, business models, and value creation mechanisms in this sector," biotechnology industry representatives wrote.

Bringing experts with business experience onto grant evaluation panels is one of the industry's central demands.

The aim is to ensure that projects are assessed not only for their scientific merit but also for their practical implementation potential and commercial viability.

"I very much hope that we can now convince the most restrictive officials that biotechnology deserves trust and investment," says Marta Winiarska of BioInMed following the ministry's leadership changes.

Poland has yet to master grant funding

The weaknesses of Poland's biotechnology funding system were also highlighted in a recent XYZ interview with Paweł Przewięźlikowski, a pioneer of the Polish biotechnology industry who founded Selvita and later Ryvu.

"There are more grants available domestically than there used to be, but we are not using them as effectively as we should. [...] Polish agencies must learn not only to distribute their allocated funding fairly but also to fight effectively for Polish companies in EU-level programs. If we fail to do so, we will end up contributing more to the European budget than we recover from it," says Przewięźlikowski.

He is a member of the Council for the Future, an advisory body working on changes to the biotechnology sector.

A lost year

If STEP is supposed to strengthen Europe's technological independence, Poland's pace of biotechnology development can hardly be regarded as a model of success.

For the industry, this has been a lost year.

European funding in Poland is being distributed far too slowly. This year, PARP has mainly awarded grants from competitions launched in 2025. NCBR has performed somewhat better, but it too has a substantial backlog of decisions.

One particularly striking example is Ryvu, which waited four years for one of its grants.

"The project was evaluated six times at different levels. We waited more than four years. During that period, the share of Chinese biotechnology companies in licensing deals with big pharmaceutical companies rose from around 10% to more than 50%. That clearly illustrates the difference between Europe's and China's approaches to innovation," Ryvu's founder told XYZ.

Across NCBR biotechnology STEP competitions launched in 2025 and decided this year, eight projects received funding totaling approximately PLN 132.3 million, less than the amount originally available.

In the new competitions launched in 2026, NCBR allocated another PLN 300 million, divided equally between two funding tracks.

The results have not yet been announced, but at least these calls have attracted interest.

Under Track A, companies submitted 21 applications requesting a combined total of more than PLN 395 million.

Track B is still under evaluation, with applications accepted until mid-September.

So is the grant money available or not?

Technically, the unallocated funds from this year's competitions have not disappeared. They may be transferred, used in subsequent calls, or reallocated in other ways permitted under the program's rules.

But the underlying facts remain: for every PLN 100 available under this year's PARP biotechnology funding calls, less than PLN 3 has been recommended for distribution.

American and Chinese companies are certainly not going to put their innovations on hold while Poland sorts out its grant system.

Who is listening to the Council for the Future?

In October, cooperation between the Council for the Future and government decision-makers entered a new phase, with industry recommendations being passed on to the relevant institutions and agencies.

The biotechnology sector is now waiting primarily for changes to the competition rules used by PARP and NCBR.

The question is whether the ministry's new leadership will maintain this process.

There are also growing calls to stop fighting a losing battle and transfer responsibility for biotechnology development to the Ministry of Development and Technology, overseen by Economy and Finance Minister Andrzej Domański.

The idea is straightforward: less accounting, more innovative thinking.

Key Takeaways

1. PARP's 2026 biotechnology STEP funding program has largely failed to deliver. Of the PLN 300 million allocated to two competitions, only one project – IBSS Biomed's PLN 8.4 million investment grant – was recommended for support. That represents less than 3% of the available budget. One funding track attracted no applications at all, while the other received six, of which only one was successful.
2. The industry argues that the problem lies not only in the eligibility criteria but also in how projects are evaluated. Companies criticize the overly narrow interpretation of STEP technologies and the shortage of evaluators who understand biotechnology commercialization. They want more business practitioners involved in assessing applications, alongside scientific experts.
3. Biotechnology companies hope the ministry's leadership changes will bring a new approach to funding innovation. NCBR has performed better than PARP but continues to struggle with delays and highly selective procedures. The industry now wants the Council for the Future's recommendations to translate into simpler rules, faster decisions, and more effective support for technological development.