A Champions League of European Health Innovation Clusters
Recently at the Medicon Valley Alliance Summit in Copenhagen, the spotlight was on European competitiveness. In a keynote, panelists from four of Europe’s leading life sciences hubs shared their intention to establish a “Champions League” of clusters, working as a team to strengthen health innovation for Europe as a whole.
Header Image: Christof Klöpper, Anette Steenberg, Ann Van Gysel, and James Rose; panelists at the Medicon Valley Alliance Summit.
The “Champions League” idea originates with four clusters representing Europe’s leading life sciences hubs — Flanders (Belgium), Medicon Valley (Denmark-Sweden), Golden Triangle (the UK), and BioValley (France-Germany-Switzerland). It builds on the stark message of last year’s Draghi report: Europe has excellent science, but fails to implement and scale innovations. By aligning strengths and strategies, these clusters aim to make it possible for companies to stay in Europe, rather than looking to the US or China for the resources they need to grow.
Ann Van Gysel from Biovia, the health innovation cluster for Flanders, said: “The future of innovation will not be decided by who works fastest alone, but by who works smartest together. When we align our strengths, we can build the critical mass that European innovators need to scale their solutions, to the benefit of both the economy and European patients.”