Denmark's biotech sector best in Europe

Denmark takes the global top three spot in the 2016 Scientific American Worldview Scorecard, assessing countries worldwide according to their biotechnology innovation potential, ahead of its European contemporaries.

Denmark gets the top score for intensity, boasting 215.4 international patent applications filed per million inhabitants. When compared to Europe’s four largest economies, Denmark’s productive patent filling puts the country ahead of the UK, France and the Netherlands, second only to Germany.

Competitive conditions

The life science industry in Denmark currently employs more than 40,000 people. Many of these highly skilled employees are located in Medicon Valley, one of Europe’s top three sites for biotech innovation alongside Cambridge in the United Kingdom and Basel in Switzerland. Add to this a generous public sector investment of around 5.6 billion Euros as well as a drug trial application process of approx. 6 weeks and a high approval rate of approx. 95%. These are just some of Denmark’s biotechnology strongholds.