Biosecurity

Context

Biosecurity and bio-awareness have become an important issue in the recent years. Actually, while biological weapons and possible dual use of biological agents and toxins have been a concern for many years at the level of the nations, bioterrorism potentially involving small groups of people or even individuals has become an increasing issue. Several countries have set up new and sometimes very constraining regulations on the subject, while others are still assessing the need for more rules and controls. In the meantime, many countries have started to review their emergency response plans in view of a possible bioterrorism attack.

At the level of a company or institution, besides the pressure from possible additional regulations and controls, the main issue lays in the need to prevent sensible material and operations from being used as a source or a target for bioterrorism actions.

Our pragmatic way to deal with this issue is to look at biosecurity aspects as part of biosafety management in a global biorisk management approach. Many provisions that limit the risk of misuse of biological material and facilities are indeed included in biosafety management, and in many cases only a few additional security measures need to be integrated to strongly reduce the likeliness of deliberate damaging actions.

Services

The service we offer in this field is to identify and assess the vulnerability of the facilities and operations to intentional misuse, then to propose and develop concrete control measures together with the implementation of a management review plan.

We also offer regulatory assistance in this field, including for importation or exportation of sensible biological materials.