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 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.
Since the 1990s – 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 more than 500 mostly young companies. In total, together with the biotechnological sectors of other companies they employ around 35,000 employees.
A look at the fields of activity of the biotechnology companies illustrates: red biotechnology (e. g. health research) is still the most important application area (48.3 per cent). Companies such as suppliers for more than just one sector come second with 31.5 per cent. A far smaller portion of companies work in the white biotechnology sector (industrial biotechnology; 10.8 per cent), in bioinformatics (5.1 per cent) or in the green biotechnology sector (e. g. agricultural biotechnology; 4.3 per cent). But since many activities in these sectors take place in large scale enterprises and not in merely biotechnological companies, the relevance of these activites is much higher. In 2012 these companies with their core business in biotechnology earned almost 2.9 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.
