Hospitals, researchers and companies must apply for a licence to use certain substances or risk a jail sentence from 1 May

From the start of May, all companies who deal with substances that could be used to make biological weapons will be required to have an authorisation, as those in charge of controlling the sector say that security has been too lax up until now.

The Centre for Biosecurity and Biopreparedness (CBB) is the agency that issues licences to institutions, hospital and companies to allow them work with what are called ‘biological dual use components’. If a company doesn’t have the licence from 1 May, then the responsible management person faces up to 2 years in jail.

John-Erik Stig Hansen, head of CBB, told Business.dk that apart from health and safety workplace rules, there has been very little regulation for registering biological material.

‘You could say that domestic safety has been extremely, extremely lax,’ he said.

Hansen said he couldn’t comment on speculation that someone has abused the situation until now, but he wouldn’t rule it out, either.

A study carried out by a resident doctor at the centre examined the safety and security procedures at 96 facilities, including hospitals and companies. The study found that the doctor could gain access to biological weapon components in 50 percent of cases without major difficulty.

Hansen said that in addition to determining the lack of secure conditions, the centre is also facing the difficulty of not knowing how many companies have stores of what substances.

‘We estimate there are between 60 and 500 companies that need a licence, but we don’t really know. We thought we could find out from somewhere like the Labour Market Authority, but it appears that no one has previously preformed a review of this area.’

The CBB is working in close cooperation with the Confederation of Danish Industry and the Danish Association of Biotechnology Industries to ensure all relevant companies are aware of the new regulations.

‘Companies should take it seriously – not just because the penalty for not having a licence can result in a 2 year jail term, but because no Danish companies or research institutions want to be involved in delivering components that can be used in a biological weapon attack,’ Hansen said.