Turku – home of world class Life Science expertise
Turku is one of Finland’s most important Life Science clusters with more than 100 life science companies and two universities focusing on health and biotechnology. In Turku there are over 1000 researchers in the universities and Turku University Hospital, and all are located at walking distance to each other. Also, this spring it has been proposed to the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health that the new national drug development center should be established in Turku.
Turku, home of the Finnish life science expertise cluster, has about 20% of its industrial workforce in the life science sector. Pharmaceutical and diagnostics development have been the strong suit of the cluster since the early 1980s.
Today, the companies operating within the cluster produce more than half of Finland’s total net revenue in pharmaceutical sales. While the drug development and diagnostics sectors have traditionally been the cornerstones of the universities of Turku, the overall expertise cluster is much broader, covering different aspects of healthcare and technology. Drug development and diagnostics is also a common research profiling area of the University of Turku and Åbo Akademi University funded by the Academy of Finland.
Turku is the home of Finland’s first operational biobank. Approximately one million samples are stored in the Auria Biobank and used for medical research. The cluster also includes Turku PET Centre – a Finnish National Research Institute for the use of short-lived positron emitting isotopes in the field of medical research. The Centre offers PET expertise in drug discovery and development.
In imaging studies, Turku BioImaging is an interdisciplinary science and infrastructure umbrella that aims to unite bioimaging expertise in Turku and elsewhere in Finland. Turku BioImaging is coordinating the Finnish national imaging infrastructure network (FiBi) and is launching an Euro-BioImaging ERIC Headquarters in Turku. Turku also hosts a comprehensive care centre for cancer.
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