Biotechnology in Germany - the future on your doorstep
Whether it is health and nutrition, agriculture or production and environmental protection - biotechnology has already established itself in the central areas of our lives. This success, but also the numerous still unsolved problems and the promising solution approaches motivate scientists and entrepreneurs to develop new products and procedures. Bearing in mind the increasingly intensifying international competition, innovative ability is of great significance for research and economy in Germany: for improving and securing of service standards and the work place. In this way biotechnology in Germany stands for a piece of the future on your doorstep.
In the last decade - particularly from 1997 to 2001 – the number of biotechnological companies in Germany has increased dramatically, which is to be attributed among other things to the BioRegio competition started by the BMBF in 1995. This could contribute to the fact that regional concentrations of biotechnological companies have been established, so called. Three of the four largest are in the winner regions of the competition: Munich, Rhine-Neckar and Rhineland. A further biotechnological network does research and works in the Berlin - Brandenburg area. Throughout Germany there are currently 25 biotechnology regions with around 600 mostly young companies, 360 of them in the biomedical sector. Therefore Germany is in the vanguard of Europe.
In total, together with the biotechnological sectors of other companies they employ around 30,000 employees, almost half of them with university education. A look at the fields of activity of the biotechnology companies shows the significance of innovative ability and development in this sector: 85% carry out their own research, 64% provide services, 63% carry out product and process development, 45% are in production. In 2006 these companies with their core business in biotechnology earned almost 1.8 billion Euros in Germany.
A close link between biotechnological research and scientific implementation is crucial for commercial and scientific success. Accordingly, biotechnology clusters have emerged in regions with a high level of universities, universities of applied sciences and public research institutions - ideal conditions for intensive networking between science and economy.
