Health-related life sciences: an important sector in the Dutch economy

The Netherlands has placed itself in 'pole position' to reap the societal and economic rewards of the Health Age. Today, the health-related life sciences industry already represents about 3% of GDP and employs 54,600 people. And it is set to grow.

Vibrant private sector

In 2006 a total of 935 companies and foundations generated a turnover of EUR 15.9 billion, making the industry one of the key pillars of the Dutch knowledge infrastructure.

Source: EIM study for EZ [2006], Voorstel LSG [2006]

Around 150 of these companies are R&D-focused (i.e. they depend on the creation of inventions that represent valuable intellectual property). The remaining 800 include companies and foundations that focus on health-related life sciences R&D, such as production, distribution, commercialization and correlated services.

Home to prominent companies

The Dutch industry is knowledge-intensive; 20% of the workforce is employed as research staff. The Netherlands is home to several blue chip companies with a strong Life Science focus like Merck - Schering-Plough/Organon (women's health, fertility, vaccines, manufacturing), Philips (medical imaging), Unilever (healthy ageing), DSM (biologicals, bulk ingredients, nutrition) and Danonen/Nutricia (clinical nutrition, baby foods).

The majority of life science companies are labelled small and medium sized firms.

Crucell, Galapagos, Pharming, OctoPlus and Fornix are examples of Dutch dedicated biotech companies that have gone public.

High per-capita R&D output

The Netherlands is one of the world's leading R&D nations and ranks among the very best in terms of research performance. Dutch researchers produce 2.5% of all scientific publications worldwide.

Public and private research combined, the Netherlands has the highest per capita research output of peer countries like the UK, Germany, Canada, Australia, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium and Finland.

Cosmopolitan and co-operative R&D community

The Dutch R&D community is very cosmopolitan; 20% of university researchers and 30% of researchers at technical universities hail from outside of the Netherlands. In 2007, the Dutch government made it even easier for foreign knowledge workers to come work and live in the Netherlands. Another key trait of the Dutch R&D community is the high level of public-private co-operation.

Public-private partnerships

Dutch government, academia, leading companies, and SMEs have invested heavily in health-related life sciences R&D, particularly through public-private partnerships. Total investments over the coming five years will exceed EUR 1 billion.

These knowledge-intensive initiatives will continue to deliver many leads for breakthroughs in therapeutics, biomaterials, regenerative medicine, diagnostics, dietary supplements and nutraceuticals to prevent or slow the progression of disease.