Medicon Valley
Medicon Valley is a leading bi-national life-sciences cluster in Europe, spanning the Øresund Region of eastern Denmark and southern Sweden. It is one of Europe's strongest life science clusters with a large number of life science companies and research institutions located within a very small geographical area.
Medicon Valley connects academia, hospitals and companies in the Oresund Region, which includes the regions of Greater Copenhagen and Sealand 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. Medicon Valley is promoted by Region Skåne and Copenhagen Capacity.
Many of the region's universities have a strong heritage in biological and medical research and have produced several Nobel Prize winners. The almost century-long presence of a number of research-intensive and fully integrated pharmaceutical companies, such as Novo Nordisk, H. Lundbeck, AstraZeneca and LEO Pharma,[1] has also contributed significantly to the development of the region by strengthening abilities within applied research, attracting suppliers and producing spin-offs.
The Medicon Valley fosters greater research cooperation between companies and academia involved in the life science sectors, including pharmacology, biotechnology, and medical technology. The area 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 .
The Medicon Valley region is known for its research strengths in the areas of neurological disorders, inflammatory diseases, cancer and diabetes.