Medicon Valley
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Medicon Valley is a leading bi-national life science cluster in Europe and the largest in Scandinavia, founded in 1995. The idea of Medicon Valley slowly emerged during the early 1990s and was formalised and financially supported through the European Union Interreg II programme. Medicon Valley connects academia, hospitals and companies in the Oresund Region, which includes the regions of Greater Copenhagen and Zealand in Denmark and Skåne in Sweden. Medicon Valley has a population of approximately 3.2 million inhabitants. This cross-border cluster was initiated by local industry, which already formed a strong knowledge base with five big pharmaceutical companies, the brewery Carlsberg and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and Lund University in Sweden.
The main objective for the formation of the Medicon Valley cluster was to foster greater research cooperation between companies and academia involved in the life science sectors including pharmacology, biotechnology, medical technology on both sides of the Oresund Strait. This includes 12 universities, 32 hospitals and more than 300 life science companies. The biotechnology industry employs around 40,000 people in the region, 4,000 of whom are academic researchers. International companies with major research centres in the region include Novo Nordisk, Lundbeck, LEO Pharma, Ferring Pharmaceuticals, and AstraZeneca. Medicon Valley accounts for more than 20% of the total GDP of Denmark and Sweden combined[1].
The Medicon Valley region is known for its research strengths in the areas of neurological disorders, inflammatory diseases, cancer and diabetes.
Medicon Valley Alliance[2] is the non-profit cluster organisation for the Medicon Valley region.
[edit] References
The Medicon Valley Region: Academia and Industry Join Forces in Research and Training (2003)[3]
Medicon Valley in European leadership (2005) [4]
Medicon Valley bridges business with biotech (2006) [5]
Sweden: A Midnight Sun for Biotech (2007) [6]
