The strongest expertise cluster and a business pioneer of the life science field in Finland
The Turku region is home to the leading health cluster in Finland, HealthTurku. HealthTurku is an expertise centre for pharma, diagnostics and health technology and a frontrunner in functional foods research.
Finland has one of the strongest health-technology economies in the world, and the country is one of the best ecosystems for health research and development. It is constantly coming in at number one in the availability of scientists and engineers, the latest technology, and when measuring the collaboration between universities and industry in research and development. (See also Business Finland.)
Our HealthTurku companies range from top international pharmaceutical corporations and diagnostics companies to promising deep-tech start-ups. They are global market leaders in e.g. the screening of new-born babies and pregnant women, cardiac markers, and the development and production of birth control implants. The vast majority of the innovative original drugs developed in Finland come from the Turku region. The functional foods forum brings together multidisciplinary expertise for the research and development of high-quality and healthy foods of the future.
Important drug development and diagnostics companies in the Turku region include e.g. Bayer, Biovian, Faron Pharmaceuticals, Organon Finland, Hytest, Orion, and PerkinElmer, and in food industry Eckes Granini, HKScan, Nestle, and Raisio.
Get to know our HealthTurku companies and other companies from the Turku region with the help of our company directories. Health ecosystem map of Turku Business Region.
Success lies in cooperation
The HealthTurku ecosystem is based on a robust, cutting-edge infrastructure and research environment, coordinated by Health Campus Turku. It offers numerous testing and simulation platforms to businesses, all collected on the TERTTU Health Collaboration Platform.
Our health cluster hosts also a unique Werstas Labs laboratory co-workspace for life science and health companies and coordinates the national ProHealth Growth, a growth program focusing on products or services within professional, regulated healthcare.
We are a proud holder of the ECEI Bronze Label for cluster excellence as part of the European Cluster Excellence Initiative.
National and transnational collaboration
HealthTurku is a member of ScanBalt BioRegion, the Council of European BioRegions and Enterprise Europe Network.
We participate in various national and EU projects, all focusing on improving innovativeness and business opportunities for local life-science companies. Some of the most significant initiatives include the applications of synthetic health data, modernisation of drug manufacturing as well as re-thinking of hospital ships of the future.
The European Digital Innovation Hub (EDIH) HealthHub Finland is a consortium that helps SMEs to digitalise and develop new health data-driven businesses. It brings together top experts from across the country to help companies to lower the threshold for creating new health data-driven innovations.
In addition to Turku Science Park Ltd., HealthHub Finland includes the Hospital District of Southwest Finland, Finnish Biobanks – FINBB, Business Tampere, Kuopio Health, Kajaani University of Applied Sciences, the University of Oulu and Business Oulu.
Networking with impact
HealthTurku is a thriving life-science community, coming together at numerous events and workshops offered throughout the year. The most significant ones being:
- HealthBIO annual event, which promotes national and international networking and co-operation and offers a comprehensive insight into the life-science market trends
- Life Science Live biennial international event with the newest innovations and knowledge from the business world as well as from the scientific community
- BioTreffit and HealthTuesday monthly event that combines local and national life-science news and offers splendid networking possibilities.
Turku region offers extensive services for growth-oriented companies (e.g. possibility to join our common international trade-fair and business promotion trips).
For life science professionals, Turku region offers interesting career opportunities! Learn more on Career in Southwest Finland.
