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Life Sciences in Italy Industrial Clusters

 

 

 

 

Italy has a long and well-established tradition of production and research in the Life Sciences sector.

Today it stands in third place among European nations in terms of turnover (15 billion Euro) and workforce (over 85,000) and demonstrates a strong commitment to innovation through the over 1 billion Euro it spends yearly on Research and Development, the bulk of which is destined for the more avant-garde fields connected with biotechnologies in the health sector.

 

Company expenditure on R&D is constantly rising, as is the number of new entrepreneurial biotechnology initiatives, frequently the result of academic spin-offs or connected with major foreign companies present in Italy.

 

The considerable induced economic activity created by the 400 pharmaceutical and biotechnological companies operative in Italy – including the biggest names on the global market (Astrazeneca, Aventis, Baxter, Bristol Myers-Squibb, Chiron, ElanPharma, Eli Lilly, Ethicon, Glaxosmithkline, Merck Sharp & Dohme, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, Schering Plough, Serono, Servier, Sigma Tau) – has positive effects on the sector’s whole chain of value.

 

These companies have been attracted to Italy by the availability of a highly skilled workforce at a cost that is notably lower compared to other major European nations, and they constantly interact with public research centers that can boast a tradition of optimum quality in medical research. This has led to the creation of various biotechnological clusters with pronounced specializations in fields like diagnostics, neurosciences, and oncology, not to mention applications in sectors such as biomedicine, bio-computing, bio-mechanics, and nanobiotechnology.

 

Given its annual pharmaceutical consumption of 118 billion euro and per capita spending of over 300 euro a year, Italy also already constitutes one of the most appetizing markets in Europe, and indeed the world, and in coming years looks set for further robust development. Indeed, the growing attention devoted to medical health, plus the pronounced progressive aging of the Italy’s population, are factors which will undoubtedly lead to promising new market opportunities for companies in this sector.

 

Also important are the encouraging prospects offered in the area of clinical experimentation, which in Italy is conducted above all by multinational companies keen to take advantage of the technologically avant-garde facilities available in various therapeutic fields like oncology, cardiology, vascular diseases and immunology.

 

 

 

 

The Life Sciences sector in Italy can now benefit from new business rules and modernized economic instruments thanks to important recent reforms in the field of taxation, company law and the employment market designed to offer companies greater flexibility, transparency and procedural simplicity. An additional advantage lies in the presence of international pharmaceutical and biotechnology giants that can make the most of a business system rich in small and medium sized enterprises characterized by extreme flexibility and a dynamic commitment towards innovation.

 

This process of transformation, favored by the availability of medical research centers with a tradition of excellence, and by the ever closer relationship between the worlds of business and study, has given rise to various biotechnological clusters with pronounced specializations in the fields of diagnostics and clinical experimentation. There are also extremely interesting potentialities in sectors like biomedicine, bio-computing, bio-mechanics and nanobiotechnologies.

 

The highest concentration of firms can be found in Lombardy, which constitutes one of the most important biotechnological clusters in Europe. Recently, three new biotechnology districts have been set up: in Milan for Lombardy, in Trieste for Friuli Venezia Giulia and in Cagliari for Sardinia. A fourth district is currently being set up in Puglia.

 

Italy’s pharmaceutical industrial system consists prevalently of small-scale but highly innovative enterprises derived from spin-off processes or management buy-outs carried out by research laboratories previously run by multinational companies. This kind of enterprise tends to generate extremely high levels of research productivity and to develop highly promising new applications.

 

The overall system is completed and enriched by companies that offer consultancy expertise, that supply consumable chemical and biological products used in the research, development and production of new medicines, or that work in the field of manufacturing biomedical equipment, diagnostic instruments and electronic or computer products.

 

 

 

Source: http://www.investinitaly.com