Early stage research and low turnaround dominates
Nordic science parks are full of advanced research performed by small companies but little research is done in later stages. Only a couple of the best performers have companies in phase III, according to Biotech Scandinavia's survey.
After summarising Biotech Scandinavia’s comprehensive survey of Scandinavian science parks it is clear there is a great deal of research performed mainly in preclinical stages. The companies are small and have a fairly low turnaround. A couple of research parks seem to perform above average; among these are Symbion in Denmark and Kuopio Innovation Park in Finland.
“Symbion size is probably important in several areas. Size matters in relation to create scalable economies. The size we have at present makes it possible to offer a range of services at reasonable prices”, says Peter Torstensen, CEO of Symbion.
But let’s dig into the survey. The average company employs about 10 people and has a pretty small turnaround. There are about 35-40 life science companies in an average research park. The smallest, Catscience in Denmark, contains only three life science companies compared to the largest such as Ideon in Sweden, Turku Sciencepark in Finland and Scion Dtu in Denmark. There is no correlation between the park’s age and number of life science companies and how many are employed in the life science companies; older parks do not seem to have more mature companies with more employees. The number of companies that have left the parks seems slightly higher among older and larger parks indicating that some successful companies may have left their science park when entering into a more stable period.
Research in the preclinical stage dominates the science parks. Sahlgrenska Science Park in Göteborg, Sweden, has 40 companies in preclinical research and Danish Symbion 30, while Karolinska Innovation in Stockholm has 29 companies in this stage. All three parks are built on the premises or with tight connections to large and successful universities.
“ The companies come far too early to us, they have seldom done in vivo research. I think there is a flaw in the system here. The science groups and companies should stay for a longer time in the academic world”, says Gunillla Bökmark, CEO of Sahlgrenska Science Park.
There are far more companies in the preclinical stage than in phase I, II or III. 4,36 companies per science park are conducting research in phase I while three companies are in phase II and only 1,14 company per science park are in phase III.
A considerable number of companies have products on the market indicating that a fair amount of companies have the ability to be profitable. Two of the science parks have companies with more than 40 products on the market, Kuopio Innovation Park and Biotech Umeå.
“Some companies started in the 1980s and some last year. One of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in Finland, Orion Pharma, are here in our region and that effects the result of products”, says Marjukka Suhonen, project manager at Kuopio Innovation Park.
A successful and extensive science park is Symbion in Denmark. It has 30 companies in the life science area and all are conducting preclinical research. 27 companies are in phase I, 27 in phase II, and 9 have research in phase III.
“A number of the life sciecne companies in Symbion have closed down because of the financial crisis. Those who survived were companies which had come further in their development and had raised capital before the crisis. Over a longer period, the average company might not have come so far when living in Symbion”, says Peter Torstensen, CEO of Symbion.
