Gothenburg and AstraZeneca deepen ties to strengthen life science sector
Gothenburg is to get its first regional business strategy for life science. The initiative comes from Business Region Göteborg and AstraZeneca, which have entered a strategic collaboration. The aim is to further strengthen the entire life science sector and create jobs and growth in the region.
AstraZeneca is by far the largest life science company in Sweden. The company has its production in Södertälje, while research and development are concentrated in Gothenburg.
The Gothenburg region has one of the Nordic region's most important health innovation clusters, largely thanks to AstraZeneca. The site in Mölndal is one of the company's five global research centres and employs close to 3,000 people.
Through the operations here, AstraZeneca is the company that invests the most money in Sweden in research and development. The cluster is also strengthened by the concentration of companies that AstraZeneca has managed to gather around itself in the fast-growing GoCo Health Innovation City. In the sector, there are several global companies in the region, such as Essity, Getinge and Mölnlycke, as well as many innovative SMEs.
But the cluster needs to grow and become even stronger. Globally, the life science sector is growing rapidly. In Sweden, life science companies have more than doubled their employment in the last ten years. At the same time, competition is increasing, globally, between companies, regions and countries.
A joint letter of intent
“In order to strengthen the sector and competitiveness in the Gothenburg region, closer strategic cooperation is needed in the life science area, and AstraZeneca is obviously a key player here. It concerns a number of things: attracting new companies, more talent and venture capital here, but also about cross-industry collaborations and the ability to scale up innovations,” says Patrik Andersson, CEO of Business Region Göteborg.
AstraZeneca supports this analysis.
“Gothenburg offers a fantastic environment for us as a company. But it is just as important for us as for the region that the level of knowledge continues to increase in Gothenburg, and that the ecosystem is strengthened so we maintain a high international level. We want to contribute significantly to that, and collaborate more closely. We are dependent on our surroundings,” says Matti Ahlqvist, head of AstraZeneca's research and development facility in Gothenburg.
Therefore, the parties have signed a joint letter of intent. The collaboration around attracting highly specialized talent, investments and new establishments to Gothenburg has been going on for a long time, but is now to be deepened further.
Business Region Göteborg and AstraZeneca are also taking the initiative to develop a strategy for developing the life science industry in the Gothenburg region.
“We want to involve more large companies in that work, and also small and medium-sized companies in Gothenburg. It is about the development of the entire sector. A strong life science sector also creates better conditions for the highly qualified healthcare of the future. The region's residents benefit from both technical advances and a good research and innovation environment for new therapies,” says Matti Ahlqvist.
Business Region Göteborg will coordinate the work and is currently recruiting to immediately strengthen life-science related resources. Both parties will set aside ongoing resources every month for their closer cooperation.
“I am especially pleased with AstraZeneca's strong commitment, along with the broader sector, to invest in both social and environmental sustainability. I am confident that our deepening collaboration will have far-reaching benefits for society. Our goal is to secure jobs and drive growth in a sector that is already incredibly important to us,” says Patrik Andersson.
Ten companies have a turnover of over SEK 1bn
Put simply, life science is about improving people's health, for example through the development of medicines and medical technology products, research and education around health and through new, growing innovation companies.
In the Gothenburg region, there are over 600 companies within life science, which together employ around 10,000 people, mainly in knowledge-intensive jobs. Ten of the companies have a turnover of over SEK one billion. Gothenburg is particularly strong in pharmaceutical development and advanced therapies, wound care and infections, hygiene and various forms of medical technology, or health tech.
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